


Black Heart

by Freyjabee



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Adult Content, F/F, F/M, Family, Multi, Murder Mystery, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:15:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 18
Words: 82,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23982922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freyjabee/pseuds/Freyjabee
Summary: Lucy's trying to disappear in a new town and Lisanna is the vanishing girl. Police are everywhere, warning people to stay out of any place a girl could go missing. Black hearts hang in trees, the killer's calling card.
Relationships: Lucy Heartfilia/Lisanna Strauss, Natsu Dragneel/Lucy Heartfilia, Natsu Dragneel/Lucy Heartfilia/Lisanna Strauss
Comments: 34
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story will be dealing with sensitive subject matter, sexual abuse, underage sexual abuse, the mention of spousal abuse, substance abuse, eating disorders and psychological disorders. Please adhere to the warnings.  
> (I just realized I never posted this story here, so here you guys go!)

Heat croaked in through the smallest of spaces. Suffocating, damp heat that made her skin feel far too small for her body and her eyes burn. Lucy turned herself over on the couch so she was looking at the TV from an inverted position. Her dress flopped up, as limp as flower petals, plucked and left too long in the sun.

The reporter droned onscreen. The heat wave. The heat wave. She got it. It was omnipresent. And terrible. The air conditioner was broken and the repair man was busier than ever. He couldn't get out there for two days and no amount of bribery or intimidation would change his mind.

The reporter talked about a high school band winning first prize in some kind of competition with a huge fake smile on her lips. When she moved onto her next story, she was entirely sombre. The way people could turn the emotion on and off was chilling. Lucy tried it herself, smiling wide and then shutting down. She wanted to be just like them. Sunny, sunny, sunny, not a cloud in the sky, then, whenever she wanted, she'd be a storm front. That was power, not money, not words. Total control over what her face and body were doing.

"Another girl was found this morning in East Mill Park in the Greater Clover Area," the reporter said. "The police haven't released any details but a person close to the victim has stepped forward and revealed that that the victim's name is Amanda Ashley, a local just twenty years of age."

Lucy strained to look around the reporter's shoulder. She was standing in the park where Amanda was found, as close to the police barricade as she could possibly get. There were people everywhere, and the police were pushing them all back to preserve the integrity of the scene. The wind blew, throwing the reporter's hair over her shoulder and a black heart waggle from a tree branch way, way back there, where a pair of detectives were gathered, one blonde with a cigarette in his ear, the other with a maroon dash down his face, a scar, maybe. They overlooked the evidence spewed on the ground. Yellow markers were placed in the dry, yellow grass. Lucy's imagination tried to take a turn toward the morbid as she imagined what those detailed.

The front door opened and closed. Lucy turned right-side up on the couch and fixed her dress and tried to make herself small. It never worked. He found her, he always did. In he came, his blue herringbone wool peaked suit looking immaculate despite the heat. He sat down on the coffee table in front of her and looked at her with eyes the exact same shade of brown as her own.

"They found another body."

"I know. The news just reported on it."

"That's three."

"Okay."

"He's targeting girls just like you, Lucy."

"He's in the next town over."

"His first victim was taken from Magnolia, she ended up in Clover."

He was trying to scare her. "I thought you weren't allowed to give away any details?"

"I'm not, but when my daughter's at risk, I'll tell her what she needs to know to keep safe." He took her hand and squeezed. Lucy squeezed back because that's what daughters were supposed to do. "Don't go into the park by yourself or after dark, don't talk to strangers, don't wander around the city on your own."

"Sounds like you don't want me to live my life."

"Not until the killer's caught, no." He palmed her face, taking her by the chin and looking into her eyes. He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek; his moustache prickled her skin. "I worry about you, Lucy."

He stood and left her side. Lucy watched the TV for another few minutes, though she didn't actually take anything in. She shut it off and went upstairs to her bedroom. It was stifling hot up there. She opened a window; it didn't help, there wasn't a breeze in sight.

Her laptop came alive with a whirl of its expensive fan, her printer, too, chugging and buzzing. Lucy pulled up the article on Amanda Ashley and the newest screen caps of the reporter's initial account. Someone had already captured the black heart waving like a limp, ominous flag.

She printed it out and cut it from the paper, then stuck it in her photo album full of macabre things. Some of it was poetry, some was short stories she never finished, most of it, though, was pictures of murdered girls and their murder sites. She started after her mother was shot when she was ten and continued because once you begin something like that, you can't just stop.

She cleared her browser history and hid the album back beneath her mattress, she recycled the pages, and then she listened. She could hear her father on another conference call. The director for the Community and Public Affairs section of the Magnolia Police Department got no rest.

She thought it was safe to shower. She turned on only the cold knob and stepped beneath the spray. It made her gulp to catch her breath and her skin exploded in goosebumps. She bit her lip, waiting for her hot, hot skin to get used to the change. It never really came, anytime she moved, a new part of her was exposed to the icy water and she'd have to start all over again.

Her teeth were chattering when she finally turned off the water and dried. She clutched her towel around her body and poked her head out of the door. Runners of cold water slipped over her collarbone and left droplets on the flooring. The coast was clear. She clutched her sweaty dress to her chest and took small, quick steps on her tiptoes to her room.

She jumped when she entered and her father was laying back on her bed with his hands cupped behind his head. He lifted up when she entered and looked at her. "The air conditioner's getting fixed tomorrow."

"Good." She turned from him, determined to get her dress from the closet and get the fuck out of there.

Her bed squeaked and the heat of his body settled against her back. His hands closed on her bare shoulders. Lucy tensed. "Where are you going?"

"I need to go to the library and get some research done for the paper I have due on Friday and—"

"You didn't tell me that. I'll drive you."

"Thanks," she said stiffly.

"You smell good. Did you get new shampoo?"

"No." It was the same as ever.

"Must it's just be you, then."

Most memories came and went, as ephemeral as springtime runoff. Others clung like dust to a spider's web. 'You've never felt that before,' the dust and Lucy's mind was the web. The memories fluttered back and forth, trying to cripple her. Lucy tried to pull out of his grasp and turn to face him; sometimes, if he could look at her, he would see her, his daughter, and he'd stop. He kept her where she was and slid his fingers through the water on her chest and Lucy bit her cheek hard.

"I need to get ready."

He didn't say anything. His fingers dipped lower to the top of her towel and smoothed the skin over her breasts. Lucy would normally close her eyes but today she watched his familiar fingers close over the towel and pull it to the right. The material just let go, betraying her. His body pressing into her back prevented it from falling all the way to the floor. He always did stuff like that, like if she wasn't completely nude it wasn't completely wrong.

She'd let him do it for the same reason she'd started collecting macabre tales, once you started something like that, it was hard to stop, but today, something felt fragile. It was the heat rubbing her raw or it was his pen-calloused fingers pinching and her nipples getting hard and sensitive despite everything, but Lucy thought, this is the last time.

She didn't fight. She let everything happen the way it always did, except when he'd finished touching her and went to the washroom to finish himself off, she put on her old dress, took the money she'd saved for emergencies and her photo album, and she walked down the stairs and out the front door without looking back.

By the time her father spilled sperm into the toilet, she'd already flagged down a vintage cherry red car with the decal Thunderbird down the side and climbed in. The man in the driver's seat had an infectious smile that she immediately liked. He was going to Clover, so that's where Lucy decided she was going, too.

* * *

Cheap, artificial lilac burned Lisanna's nose. She breathed shallowly and pinned a lock of wig hair back from her temple. She looked strange with black hair. Stark. Someone completely new. If she ignored her freckles and her blue eyes. She couldn't do anything about either of those.

She leaned forward and swiped deep plum lipstick over her lips—also cheap, though the matte colour claimed a twelve-hour wear. She put a clear-coat of mascara over her lashes, leaving them so blonde they were almost white, and called it done.

As soon as she'd decided that, she wondered if she shouldn't have tried a little more. She looked like a porcelain doll fresh out of the kiln.

Her partner walked through the room and she ran out of time. He looked her over head to toe and looked both sick with himself and glad to be there, if it could be both.

"Sorry, had to take that," he said in a gruff voice that Lisanna first thought was put-on but now assumed was accumulated from years of smoking, if the cigarette behind his ear was any indication. He didn't look old and he didn't look young, caught somewhere in-between in his open policeman's uniform, sweaty from a day stuck beneath his bullet-proof vest. He was so fresh off his shift he'd driven past her in his cruiser not five minutes before he drove past her in his personal Impala.

She almost declined his offer, sure that it was a ploy, but she was desperate, and desperate people went to desperate measures.

"That's okay."

He stuffed his phone into his breast pocket, beneath the nametag that read L. Dreyar. Lisanna smoothed her hands over her dress.

"Do you want anything?" L. Dreyar asked. "There's room service. I'll get it."

Wine, Lisanna thought. Oodles of wine. "I'm fine." She heard from one of the girls that shared her corner that guys didn't like it when they were sloppy drunk. They wouldn't pay, too scared of sexual harassment charges coming up on them on top of purchasing a sex worker.

"Okay." He looked just as awkward as she felt. "Well." He cleared his throat.

This was the part where she took control. Flare had showed her in great detail. It was a very intoxicating performance.

She didn't know if she could be as good as Flare, but she could try.

Go.

Lisanna dampened her dry lips and strutted the way Flare showed her. Every other step, her heel tried to wobble out from beneath her. He didn't seem to mind, he looked relieved, glad that this was now something he recognized.

He let her get close. Lisanna put her hand to his chest and felt his heart beating along, felt his lungs fill, this stranger, she was touching this stranger.

Don't think about it.

She fingered the collar of his uniform and smiled, and then she raised up on her tiptoes and kissed him. He tasted like his cigarettes and touched her in the firm way one did when they had plenty of experience touching. It made her quiver with nerves. He felt it and stopped kissing her to ask,

"Are you okay?"

"Yes." Lisanna kissed him again and found the bottom of his shirt, feeling the damp skin beneath and his muscles flexing. She crooned. "That's so nice." That's what Flare said they liked. They liked to feel powerful and wanted and worshipped. They liked almost not having control.

He took the back of her dress and started undoing the zipper. It was bought online with Flare's credit card from an outlet mall that sold it to her for twelve dollars. It was cheap and thin and when L. Dreyar got the zipper stuck, it broke.

Lisanna was humiliated.

"Fuck. Sorry—"

She didn't want to hear the next words out of his mouth. She took the straps of her dress and pulled them down over her arms. He shut up and watched her breasts come out. For a moment, Lisanna felt like she had the same kind of black magic her sister seemed to. Then he touched her and she almost fell right apart, shaking again and breathing unevenly. Her partner tried to ignore it all at first, but Lisanna saw it eating away at him.

She tried to get everything back under control but the more she tried, the wilder everything seemed, until she could not get breath and she was just a quivering mess.

L. Dreyar had pulled away and now only looked at her. "You've never done this before."

"I—"

He steepled his hands and pressed them against his mouth, huffing air into them. "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing."

"Please," Lisanna chattered. "I'm better now. I was just—nerves. I'm good."

He dropped his hands and skewered her. "No."

"No? I need the money—I—please—" Her eyes were wet without her permission. "I need to make money to pay rent or I'll never be able to get a place." His stare made her squirm. Don't fall apart. That was the most important part, Flare said. The first time's the hardest. Just don't fall apart. "Let's start over," Lisanna tried. She took her dress off the rest of the way. He looked at the fading bruise on her ribs but didn't do anything. Lisanna felt it safe to take his arm. He came alive and touched her, but not like a lover would. He pushed her back and really took a look at the ham-sized bruise.

"Did someone do that to you?"

"I just fell." Half on wet grass, half on a parking lot where a concrete stopper caught her body.

"An old boyfriend?"

"No."

"Your dad?"

"No. I fell."

"I guess girls are really fucking clumsy, huh?"

She was so aghast; she didn't know what to say. "I guess so."

"You don't have to be scared. You can—you can come and make a statement and the police will take care of it."

"No one touched me," Lisanna insisted and scuttled out of his hold.

"Fuck, Dreyar," he cursed. "Fuck."

Lisanna grabbed up her dress. Her cheeks were flaming. "You know I think I'm just going to go."

He shook his head. "Get your stuff together. I'll take you."

Lisanna blinked. "Take me where?"

"There's a place in town for girls like you."

"You're arresting me?"

"No, I'm not fucking arresting you," he said exasperatedly.

"You can't force me to make a statement, either."

"Just get your shit together and come on. Now."

He had an authoritative way about him; Lisanna jumped to do his bidding.


	2. Chapter 2

There was a picture of a fish on the wall. It had large scales and a huge mouth and the biggest, deadest eyes Lucy had ever seen. It stared at her while she peed and she had to look away. She could feel it watching her, though, as she washed her hands and fixed her tangled hair, and thought that she'd remember its hollow gaze forever. She could see, maybe, why vegetarians thought it was okay to eat them, pulling themselves through water, gasping gap-mouthed and striking with dizzying furiousness from dark and secret places.

She left the bathroom and came out into the living room. The apartment smelled like Alphagetti. She couldn't remember the last time she ate out of a can but her stomach rumbled. She found Natsu by the stove, stirring the pot with a short metal spoon.

Two days had passed since he picked her up out of Magnolia and driven her here to Clover, and in that time, she hadn't learned much about him other than the most basic things. He ate a lot because he worked out a lot. He loved his car. And he shared his space with a boy named Happy, who listened to a lot of upbeat punk rock, which is where Lucy imagined the nickname came from and bleached his hair before dying it blue.

She laughed the first night, laying on their couch and visualising dying days, the days where Natsu would buy pink dye for his hair and Happy would buy blue and they'd sit together in the little orange bathroom that wasn't much bigger than a closet and help each other out.

It was absolutely endearing.

Lucy opened her mouth to announce herself when Happy spoke up; he was standing by the pantry, out of sight. "That was the last one." He didn't sound very happy then.

"It's just a fucking can of Alphagetti, Happy." And neither did Natsu.

"I know that, but it's _my_ can of Alphagetti."

"I'll buy you a new one."

"You missed four days of work last week; you can't afford to buy me a new one."

"It's a dollar. I think I can swing it."

Happy grumbled, "How about maybe we just tell Chubby not to eat so damn much."

It was just a simple sentence but Lucy's ears roared and her stomach turned over. Natsu said something back that she missed. She retreated to the living room and went through her purse. She pulled out a twenty; it wasn't much but it was all she could spare and dropped it on the scuffed coffee table. When she came back out into the kitchen, it was with her macabre photo album in hand and the blood still thudding in her ears.

They'd stopped arguing now; Natsu was alone and had a spoon stuffed in his mouth. "I just found a place," Lucy said.

"But you just started looking." Natsu's words were muffled.

"Lucky break," Lucy said. "Lucky Lucy." She laughed and sounded completely vapid.

"Oh. Well, I started making lunch, we can celebrate—"

"I can't," Lucy said. "I told the person I'd come by right away to put a deposit down on the place." He looked crestfallen and genuine and Lucy felt terrible for the lie. She needed to get out of there, though. "I'll text you sometime."

Natsu shook off his melancholy and threw her another one of his infectious smiles. "Sure, I'd like that."

Her heart turned with a strange feeling. She smiled back at him even though she felt like crying; could anyone do otherwise? "Alright. Thanks, for picking me up and giving me a place to stay, and—"

"Oh. Do you need a ride to this new place?" He looked ashamed for his absent-mindedness.

Lucy waved him off. "It's okay. I need to get out and stretch my legs."

"And you have to go to work," commented Happy from his bedroom.

"Right," Natsu said. "Happy doesn't have to work until seven, though—"

"I'm fine," Lucy interrupted before Happy had to say no and things got awkward. " _Really_ ," she added because he looked like he was going to find another way to argue with her. "Thanks so much for everything." She slipped her feet into her sandals and then opened the door. "I'll talk to you later."

"Okay," Natsu said uncertainly. "I hope you like your new place—"

"I will. Bye!" Lucy closed the door ahead of what he said next.

His hallway was as dingy today as it had been the first night she walked through it. There were water marks on the walls and a patch or two where someone had either smashed a piece of furniture through the drywall or had put their fist through. It was a rough building on the outskirts of the rough side of town. She didn't think Natsu saw it, and if he did, he didn't care much. He parked his car out where everyone could see and only used the handle lock on his door, never the deadbolt and never the chain. In fact, he looked perturbed that Lucy suggested it, though he obliged because she was sleeping on the couch.

The door across the hall opened and a man came out. He looked at Lucy just briefly, long enough to acknowledge her and open the door at the end of the hall for her. She mumbled thank you and hurried on. She didn't know where she was going or what she was doing. She didn't have much money to rent a room and if she got a job, she'd have to wait a couple of weeks for her first pay cheque. She didn't think she'd find someone generous enough to rent to her for free until then.

There were storm clouds gathering on the horizon. Lucy walked in the opposite direction in the hopes that she could outpace them. Her journey took her away from Clover's impoverished and student district and towards the shops and restaurants.

Couples sat on porches still, eating their meals and drinking their beers or iced teas and laughing. Lucy's stomach cramped and she quashed the feeling with Happy's casual use of _chubby_.

"We're trying to eat dinner; do you really have to stare at your phone?" asked a man in one of the booths at a burger place. The man he spoke to barely looked up.

"They found another body. At East Mill Park."

Lucy sidled closer.

" _Again_?"

"I guess so."

"How many is that now?"

"Four."

"Four girls. How's—" The man looked up. Lucy realized she'd stopped right in front of their table and was staring, her expression disturbed. She smoothed her features and kept walking.

There was a newsstand ahead. She crossed the street for it and snatched up one of today's papers. The ones that remained had been windswept, the covers creased and the papers curled by the heat. She took up the most intact one and paid the owner. The murder wasn't on the front page, that was some garbage municipal politics story, it was buried on page _five_ , how, Lucy didn't know. Murder was big news. Page two news at the _very_ least.

The picture looked almost identical to the last crime scene, the black heart spinning off a tree branch like some insane homage and the two detectives doing detective-like things, checking out the slew of yellow markers and looking professional and troubled. There were people almost half a kilometer behind them, pushing as close to the barrier as possible. Lucy imagined she could see more from this picture than they could have from back there.

She stopped at a craft store and purchased a pair of scissors and a glue stick. By then, the clouds had moved right over the city centre and thunder was rumbling. She had just enough time to dash out and find shelter beneath an arch bridge, at Highway Eighty-Nine. It was unoccupied by anyone but the cars racing through.

She stayed up near the top, where the ground met concrete and made herself small. There was a little bit of daylight left; she used it to snip the grey paper away and pasted the cut-out into her book with great care. When she was done that, all she had to do was listen to the rain pelt down and the thunder grumble like some great beast had awakened from its slumber. Cars cut through puddles on the road and though she was far away, Lucy could feel the spray of it on her arms from time to time, when the wind was just right. Finally, after days of sweating, she was cold.

She shivered and wondered if it was smart to leave Natsu's. She couldn't have stayed, though. She'd just mull and mull and mull over something said so _casually,_ so _carelessly_ , something that _clung_ to her like burs on silk, leaving her roughed and ruined even after the words were pulled away.

Lucy put her head back against the bridge abutment and thought about other things. She thought about dead girls and hearts. Black ones that twirled off branches, ghoulish and carefully constructed. She wondered what they meant or if the killer just liked the shape. She wondered if he knew that _one_ object would haunt mothers and fathers in the surrounding districts for years. They'd look at their daughters and wonder, _is this time the last time_? The last time they smiled at one another, laughed, or cried?

* * *

Boots sliding through damp sand brought Lucy out of a skittish slumber. She opened her eyes and was suddenly wide awake. There was a man approaching her. His head was down; he was getting something on his hip. Her mind went to the darkest places. She stood abruptly and cracked her head on the low-hanging concrete so hard, she was momentarily blind.

"Holy fuck. Are you okay?"

Did killers ask that? Of course they did, they wanted you to be better before they made you worse, because that was most of the fun.

Lucy clutched her head and swayed left, sizing up the ground so she could make a run for it. The man stepped in front of her. "Hold on. I have some questions. What are you doing out here?"

Lucy just stared at him blankly. There was a pulsing light, red, blue, that she couldn't make much sense of. It made him look segmented. Pale and ghostly. There was a scar on his face, huge and long over his eye and down onto his cheek and his hair was so light, it was almost translucent.

"Can you speak? Do you need a translator? Or maybe someone with sign language?" He tapped his ear. "Are you deaf?"

"What?" her speaking muscles were rusty from hours of disuse. Her voice bubbled weirdly.

The man looked relieved. "Good, you can speak. I'm Detective Dreyar. What's your name?"

"Um…" Her hesitance brought upon a whole new concern. He pulled a flashlight from his belt and shined it in her eyes.

"Are you high?"

Lucy shaded her face. " _No_." She saw a silver flash on his chest and concluded he was a policeman. She was suddenly more nervous than before. If her dad was looking for her, he would have reached out to all the nearby towns, starting with Clover with the killer on the loose. He had connections. There was no way that this man hadn't heard of her. Or seen her picture.

"Do you remember your name?"

She was never very good at lying and thought she was already caught so she said the truth. "My name is Lucy."

No light went on in his eyes. He was steady and methodic asking, "Do you have a last name, Lucy?"

Encouraged, Lucy said, "No."

"Alright." He shone his flashlight over her things, the photo album that was thankfully closed, the newspaper she'd once had covering her middle but was now taken away by the wind and scattered across the ground. No bags, other than her purse, and no clothes other than the ones she was wearing. He must have seen a lot of stuff like that because he asked her, "Do you have a place to go?"

"Of course I do." She sounded too defensive. Lucy tried to tone it back. "I was just waiting."

He nodded. "Alright. Why don't you come wait in the cruiser?"

She had always had a problem saying no, which is how she got herself into this mess in the first place. She took up her album and let the policeman lead the way down the slope to the cruiser. It was hard to see when she got close, those lights were _blinding_. He seemed to know his way around well enough, though, and grabbed the back door for her. Lucy hesitated; she wasn't expecting to sit in the back, but there was another man in the front, one with dark hair and elaborate links down his face that she was able to identify when the interior light went on. Not scarring, she realized, but some kind of cultural tattoo.

She sank into the back. The seats were polyester and stiff, either the car was new or it got cleaned and sprayed regularly. The man in the front turned in his seat to look at her. He had hazel eyes and they measured her up with just one sweep. He knew she was a runaway. He may have even known _which_ runaway

He didn't say anything to her but Lucy heard him sigh from his nose.

Detective Dreyar got in and got on his radio. Lucy could hear his voice, low and raspy, calling in his badge number and telling them, "We got the girl on Eighty-Nine and we're taking her to Rose Place."

"Copy that," the man on the other end of the radio said and it was turned down again.

Lucy squeaked, "What's Rose Place?"

"Women's shelter."

Lucy felt her cheeks burn. "I don't need a shelter."

"If that was true, you wouldn't be sleeping under a bridge," Dreyar said tersely.

How true.

Lucy flopped back in her seat. Streetlights whipped past her, and headlights, too. She was cold so she wrapped her arms around herself; the passenger noticed, somehow, and turned off the air conditioning despite his partner's reproachful look.

"Thanks," Lucy broke the silence and got no response. Once she'd spoken, though, she felt brave enough to do it again. "You're the detectives from the news. The ones handling the Black Heart case."

Dreyar's slate coloured eyes came up to the rear view mirror. "Yeah."

"I've been following along," Lucy said.

"But you're still sleeping under bridges," Dreyar muttered.

Lucy had no defense for that. "Do you have any leads yet?"

"We aren't at liberty to discuss an ongoing investigation," Dreyar said again but his partner contradicted him, speaking for the first time to tell Lucy,

"We have a psych evaluation and a victim profile. He's interested in young girls—honour roll college students."

Lucy got the feeling that was the most he habitually spoke. Even his partner looked surprised. "Fernandez."

"She should know."

Detective Dreyar looked at Lucy again. He was sizing her up the way his partner had, looking at her frizzy hair and her rumpled dress, seeing _past_ the grime and coming to the same conclusion his partner had. She was a good girl, she had good grades, she went to a good school, she came from a good home where she wanted for almost nothing. She _was_ victim material but Lucy wasn't interested in being anyone's victim again.

* * *

Lisanna was deep in the lines of Clive Barker's _Imajica_ when she noticed the headlights cutting through the rain _._ It was an Impala, she knew because her brother _loved_ cars, and she knew it was Detective Dreyar's because she immediately recognized him getting out of the driver's seat.

She sank low on her bed, imagining that he'd come to take her out of the shelter and kick her back onto the streets again. That was _illogical_ , of course, but almost every time she thought she had something going kind of good, it was taken away from her.

Then she noticed the blonde getting out of the backseat and some of her anxiety fizzled. She closed her book and turned off the headlamp her old roommate had given her just that day as a parting gift—her six weeks were up and she'd found a job and an apartment—and quietly opened her door, though she wasn't supposed to be outside of her room after curfew.

The shelter had a lot of rules. The only phone calls you could make were those sanctioned by the Matriarch, you were never allowed to give out the address of the shelter, and no social media posts. A post like that would cost you your bed.

Lisanna would never dare violate the _important_ rules, not after her second night there, when she saw a woman come in with her face freshly stitched because her husband found out she got a job on the side to help them float their mortgage and their two kids. It seemed ridiculous to Lisanna, who had grown up on the mentality that everyone in the family worked so they could all live a better life, but she couldn't scoff at it, not looking at the tears and the chapped skin and the lasting reminder that woman would carry with her, the one that said, _you dared to be someone I didn't want you to be._

She hoped he'd rot before he ever found his wife.

The second stair creaked; Lisanna skipped it and took the rest on her tiptoes. At the landing, she pressed her cheek against the stained drywall and listened to the intercom on the front door buzz in Miss Porlyusica's room. The Matriarch sounded sleepy and cranky and no-nonsense, getting the details from Detective Dreyar like she was making a laundry list.

Lisanna ducked back behind her wall again when Miss Porlyusica's door opened and she shuffled out, as tall and thin and wispy as a willow sapling swaying in a storm. Lisanna was sure her bones would break at any moment, her legs too thin beneath her nightdress to support her serpentine body, but she always trekked on.

The door opened with a gasp and humid, cool air flushed inside. It got under Lisanna's nightgown and she held the paisley fabric so no one could spot it whipping around.

"You're lucky. We just had a bed open up this evening," Miss Porlyusica said.

"Thanks."

Miss Porlyusica opened the door wider. "Go into my office, girl, and get started on the paperwork on the desk."

"Yes, Ma'am," said a soft voice.

Lisanna heard Miss Porlyusica's door open and close again; the light came on across the hall, making the shelter seem warm in ways that it just wasn't.

Miss Porlyusica started speaking again, very, very lowly, so Lisanna had to strain to hear. "You keep finding me these girls, Laxus. I'm not going to have any more space."

"I know, Nan, but they don't have anyplace to go and leaving them on the street is just fucking inviting the Black Heart killer to pick them off."

"That's never been his style before."

"He's never had Lucy Heartfilia to choose from before."

" _That's_ the girl you brought here? Why didn't you turn her in?"

"Something's not right," he said. "Just don't say anything, alright? If she wants to come forward with something, she will. But until then—"

"Don't tell me how to run my shelter, boy, I know what these girls need better than you." She had a scorpion tone that didn't bother Detective Dreyar.

"Thanks, Nan."

Her voice softened when she told him, "You're a good boy, Laxus."

He muttered something Lisanna couldn't hear and the door closed again.

Lisanna stayed where she was, holding her breath. Porlyusica spoke again. "There's a medium nightgown in Cherie's room, Lisanna, why don't you go get it? Your roommate's going to need it."

Lisanna bit the inside of her cheek. Nothing got past Rose Place's Matriarch. "Yes, Miss Porlyusica."


	3. Chapter 3

Lucy's nightgown didn't fit. It was too tight around her bust and her hips and stretched it to the point where she was fearful she'd destroy it. _Nothing_ was hidden, though it wasn't supposed to be an immodest thing. Her semi-hard nipples, the roll of her stomach. Even the mound between her legs seemed to be on display. It'd never been before.

She was uncomfortable.

She crossed her arms over her breasts like _that_ would hide them and shuffled out into the room again. Her roommate had her light on and was under her covers, _Imajica_ opened in her hand. She looked at the photo album on Lucy's bed, though. Peered at it like she could see through the covers.

Lucy moved into her line of sight and her gaze shifted. She had the palest lashes Lucy had ever seen and she looked like some kind of exotic queen. Her hair was too white. Her lashes and her eyebrows, too. Her skin. Her mouth was darker, though. Like plums. Lucy didn't think she wore any lipstick or lip gloss, however, that's just the way she was.

"Thanks for finding me a nightgown," Lucy said not because she wanted to talk but because it was the right thing to do.

Her eyes never left Lucy. "No worries."

"What's your name?" She might not have wanted to make any friends, or stand there talking for any longer than what was needed, but they were going to be staying together, she should know that kind of detail.

"Lis. Lisanna."

"Lis or Lisanna?" Lucy tried to tease to keep it lighthearted.

Lisanna flushed. "Just Lisanna. I don't like Lis anymore."

Peculiar, but Lucy didn't go digging. "I'm Lucy. So, what's the deal with this place? What's it like?"

Lisanna sat up some. Her nightclothes were a pink tank top with a pair of black cotton shorts that Lucy was envious of. "Miss Porlyusica generally lets us do what we want during the day. We have chores, though. There's a chore board in the kitchen. Tara was on dishes before she left. That might be your job tomorrow."

"Oh," Lucy said. She didn't know what she'd been expecting. A dishwasher? She'd had one at her dad's.

"There's a communal fridge downstairs, too," Lucy was informed. "You'll have to label all of your stuff, though. Some of the girls think that you won't notice, or they don't care, and they eat your food."

"Okay."

"Minerva's mean. Stay away from her."

"Sure."

"And Miss Porlyusica knows everything. Always."

Lucy pulled back her covers and slid into her bed. It wasn't very comfortable compared to her old mattress. This one was lumpy and unforgiving. "How long have you been here?"

"Three days," she said to Lucy's surprise. She'd made an awful lot of conclusions in that time, leading Lucy to think that she was smart and savvy and detail-oriented. All the things she liked in a person. Lisanna asked, "Are you afraid of the dark?"

"No, why?"

"Tara was." Lisanna reached up and clicked off her bedside lamp. Lucy pursed her lips, wondering if that was it. It was a rather abrupt end to their conversation. Lisanna's headlight clicked on then, and the room was washed in a pale glow. "There's a thrift store across town. You can get some clothes that fit better."

She didn't say it to be mean but Lucy's cheeks _burned_. She sank lower on her bed and brought her photo album around so its corners were digging into her breasts and hips. "Thanks."

Lisanna's smile was ghostly beneath her headlamp. "Goodnight."

Lucy shrugged her blankets up higher. They smelled like laundry soap, but not the kind she was used to. That was good. She didn't like the smell of lavender anymore. It reminded her of her old bed.

She slept.

* * *

The smell of bacon brought Lucy from a dozy sleep. Lisanna's bed was empty, the sheets pulled up and the corners tucked in. Lucy considered staying where she was but she had to pee.

The bathroom seemed more cramped this morning than it had last night. The bathtub was almost touching the toilet and the sink was a little cup on the wall, its taps corroded from the chlorine. It was _old_. Everything about this place, right down to the white and cinnamon trimmed walls was _old._ There was a lot of horror here, too. Sadness in the walls. Lucy could feel it the way psychics said they could feel ghosts. But there was also laughter. She could hear it rise from the kitchen and come through the grates. The laughter kept the worst of the worst at bay.

She showered and used Lisanna's shampoo without asking. The water never really got hot. When she was done, she dressed in the same clothes she'd left her father's house in, though the dress was stained and smelled like sweat and soggy newspaper. It hung limply on her hips; it'd never really recovered from the humidity and it was still _hot_ out _._ The sticky, unable to breathe kind of hot.

The hallway was empty when she entered it, except for the sounds of laughter. It was raucous and full-bodied and hit her like a ton of bricks. She wanted to be out from under it.

"Hey, new girl," called a voice Lucy didn't recognize.

The front door wasn't very far. Lucy thought she could make it and get her sandals on and get out without engaging.

"New girl! Lisanna's got something for you. _New_ girl! What's her name?"

"Lucy," squeaked a voice Lucy recognized as Lisanna's.

" _Lucy_!"

Lucy still ignored her caller. They weren't going to let up, though. She caught up with Lucy at the front door. Her red, red hair was in a messy topknot and there was something wrong with her one eye. It was duller than the other. She was still beautiful, though. The kind of beautiful that made people do strange things.

There was a bagel in her hand. She thrust it upon Lucy like it was her destiny. "Lisanna made you one of her bagels."

"Oh." Lucy found Lisanna slinking ashamedly by the redhead's elbow.

"I don't mind sharing until you go shopping." Lisanna's cheeks were red again.

"Thank you," Lucy said automatically and took the offered food. It was covered in peanut butter. Her stomach let her know how unhappy it was at being ignored for so long.

Lisanna quarter-smiled. It was a sweet expression that made Lucy feel more displaced than anything. She missed her friends.

"If you're going out, just remember you're on dishes tonight," the redhead informed Lucy. "And there's a curfew in Clover now. No one's supposed to be in the park after eight."

"I won't be that long," Lucy told them and slid her feet into her sandals.

The air outside was oppressive though it was still early. Lucy scuffed her big toe over the ground as she walked, chipping off the black nail polish.

There was a man standing on the corner. He had his hair brushed back in a dignified way, though the black locks were dyed blue, and parts of it were shaved down to a buzz. There was a tattoo on his face, right between his eyes. He looked at her and _looked_ and though Lucy didn't _really_ want to talk to him, she felt a compulsion to ask,

"Do you know where the thrift store is?"

He pointed. "Mullen Avenue." He had a rough voice and a smile like throwing knives. You wanted to play with it until it cut you. He was a smoker. There was one tucked behind his ear. It wobbled when he looked her over head-to-toe.

"Thanks." Lucy deked around him and used huge steps to take her in that direction.

Lisanna's bagel was cooling in her hand. Lucy took a bite of it and chewed. The peanut butter tasted like chalk and all she could think of was Happy and her nightgown and the way _this_ dress pushed her breasts up in indecent ways. Ways that made men look at her. Men that weren't supposed to look at her. If she was skinnier. If she had less to throw around. Maybe people wouldn't stare?

She dropped the bagel into the garbage and continued on her way.

She walked for twenty minutes before the road she was on—Daisy Drive—connected with Mullen Avenue. She went the wrong way down the street at first. She couldn't check her phone, though. She'd turned it off last night, afraid that the chat forums were right and she could be tracked by her GPS location, and thrown it out.

Back she came the other way and found the Thrift shop not far from where she'd began at Daisy Drive. She was mad at herself.

A woman waited inside, rail thin and young enough that Lucy concluded she was doing her volunteer hours for high school. She left Lucy to her own devices as she perused shelving of bras and tops and bottoms. She'd need to stop at an actual department store if she wanted underwear and socks, but that was okay.

Most of the clothing was too small; it didn't fit her hips or her bust. She found some stuff, though, a pair of skinny jeans that she wiggled to get into and wasn't totally confident in, though she _wanted_ to be, and a loose-fitting tank. She ripped the tags off both, deciding she'd wear them. There was a purple dress with black forest stencils, and a paisley jumpsuit she added to her collection.

She bought other things, too. A loose-fitting sweater for when the weather got colder, and a brand name waterproof jacket she couldn't pass up, though it was small on her.

When she came to the register, the girl looked at Lucy, her dress folded up in her hands and her still-damp and knotted hair and asked, "Do you need a tab?"

Like she knew she was from the shelter. The tips of Lucy's ear's burned. "I can pay."

"Are you sure? It's no trouble. Lots of girls do it. We know you always settle up."

"I can pay," Lucy insisted and took out her bills to prove her point. The clerk accepted her money with pressed-together lips.

Laden with non-descript bags, Lucy left the shop. She didn't want to return to the shelter yet, though, and instead went to East Mill Park. She couldn't help it. Curiosity and cats and all that.

It was near deserted, except for a few bird-watchers. Most of them were in large hats and had expensive cameras. They were silent, sitting by the pond near where they found Amanda Ashley _._ Lucy could actually _see_ the tree the black heart twisted from. It was gone now, though.

She stood and like a moth to the flame, went to the tree. It looked like any other oak, tall and straight and eternal. There were a few differences, though. _This_ bur oak had spots in its bark missing where the Black Heart killer had tied his morbid calling card. Lucy reached overhead and touched it and it was almost like touching death. She wished she had her album here so she could look at its fascinating curiosities in this place. She wished she could see what the detectives did when they stood over the body.

_This is where she lay,_ Lucy thought, looking at the dead and broken grass. _Is it where she died, though_?

A person hurried by her, feet crushing the grass, but when Lucy looked up, there was no one around. A cold chill crawled over her skin. She bit the inside of her lip and started to turn away, but something caught her eye. A black strap. She looked _up_ and saw a camera. It was in an unusual spot, sitting in the crux of the oak's two mightiest branches, mostly hidden in a hollow, covered by dead leaves.

It took her a couple of seconds to decide what to do but she eventually reached up with shaking hands and took the camera from its perch. It was a film camera and had _Kodak_ stenciled on the front. It _felt_ malignant, too, if such a thing could have a _feel_ to it. She touched the hand grips and imagined her fingers overlaid those that had done wicked things. _Another_ chill took her.

"Doesn't that freak you out?"

Lucy whipped around and came face-to-face with a woman as old as her mother would have been. She was twice as wrinkled, though, smoking a Camel cigarette and walking her Pomeranian.

"Pardon?"

"That's where that girl died, I heard. Your standing in it."

She was, and she could _feel_ it. She _could_.

"You're not one of those thrill chasers, are you?"

"What?"

"One of those fucking spooky girls." She wiggled her fingers by her ear. "With the makeup and the black. What do they call themselves? Gods?"

"Goths?" Lucy threw out there.

"That's it."

"I—no."

"You look as spooky as one."

She wasn't even wearing any makeup. This woman wasn't the kind of woman one argued with and kept their sanity, though. She was hard-set in her ways and brash. Lucy asked, "Did you see who left this camera?"

"That's not yours?"

Lucy made up a quick lie. "It is. I thought I lost it here, though. And someone picked it up and left it in this tree."

The woman looked like she saw through the ruse. She let Lucy have her poor lie, though. "Never saw no one."

Lucy's blood throbbed in her ears. "Thanks. And, do you know, is there a film place in Clover?"

The woman looked at her peculiarly. "There's a Henry's on Main Street, two blocks north of here."

"Thanks a lot." Lucy left her there before she could ask anymore questions and tried to figure out which direction was north.

It took her twenty minutes, but finally, she was on the right track. There was a huge hill on Main, and by the time she'd scaled it, she was sweaty and her tank top was as wilted as her dress had been. The film store was air conditioned, though, and the counter was empty, so she bent in half and leaned her cheek against the countertop, trying to cool down.

"Lucy?"

She shot up to attention at the sound of his voice and it took her a couple of seconds to accept that Natsu was coming out of the employee section. The dark room. He looked carelessly handsome in a plain black T-shirt and faded blue jeans. "Hey." Her smile felt fake.

"What are you doing here?"

"Um…" She tried to grip her hands together but she was holding something in the way. The camera. Right. "I found a camera. Its film. And I wanted to get it developed."

"You found a camera?"

She shrugged. "Yeah?"

"And you _want_ to develop its film?"

She had a hard time explaining to him _why_ , so she got snippy. "Can you develop it or not?"

"Of course we can. _I_ can. It's what we do." He looked at her for another moment, as if trying to see what had her so twitchy. Lucy thrust the camera at him.

"Here you go."

Natsu took it and said something to make Lucy pause. "Did you want to see how it's done?"

"How you develop film?"

"Yeah."

"Are you allowed?"

He shrugged and looked around. "I'm the only one here, and so are you, so why not?" He turned that infectious smile on her and Lucy couldn't help but say yes. She followed him into the dark room lit only by a red light. Everything turned surreal, the four baskets of developing chemicals, the device used to make negatives large on photo paper, the string were the negatives would hang. The scent of chemicals surrounding her, toxic. It was like they were all part of Oz and she was just visiting.

"Welcome to the Dark Room." Natsu stood close to her and the small space felt very intimate if she ignored the pounding of her heart and the _surety_ that they were going to find something awful. "It's seen some crazy stuff."

Her heart pounded harder. "Yeah?"

He lifted his shoulder. "There's an old guy that always takes pictures of his naked wife on this film. They come here to get it developed. It's _weird._ Just. Weird. There's another guy that dresses his Chihuahuas up as Mexican law enforcement and puts them in these miniature, elaborate old school Mexican towns. They got these—" He laughed like he couldn't help it. "These fucking serious faces. And these fake guns. It's ridiculous."

Lucy laughed and felt less spooked. Natsu beamed like he'd won some kind of prize. "What is it?" Lucy asked.

He shrugged. "I just can't believe you just wandered into my store."

"Lucky Lucy," Lucy said again.

He tried it out. "Lucky Lucy. Lucky Natsu."

She blushed. "How do we develop the film?"

Natsu sobered and explained, "First we have to get the film out of the camera."

She watched him reach up onto a top shelf and get out a black fabric bag. He shoved his hands and the camera inside. Lucy waited while he worked, listening to the camera open and the film come out. He did it confidently and the whole thing was over in a few seconds.

"Then we develop the negatives."

"Okay."

"Can you shut out the light? We need it to be totally dark."

The switch was over Natsu's shoulder. He moved for her but not all that much. Lucy had to lean around him; her heart was twisting when she clicked off the switch and returned to her position.

"Thanks." Natsu's voice, so close, startled her in the dark. Lucy felt him moving beside her. He knew this area well and worked efficiently without any light. She heard him pouring chemicals into _something_ and could only imagine what he was doing.

Long minutes passed with only the sound of Natsu swishing the chemicals around. Then he asked, "How are you liking your new place?"

"It's good," Lucy squeaked.

"The apartment's kind of lonely without you."

She couldn't see his face to see if he was kidding or not. "I was there for a day."

"You put away the dishes, though. Happy never does."

Lucy felt herself beginning to smile but quashed it. She didn't want to think about Happy. "I live with all girls."

Whether or not he figured out her secret, Lucy couldn't tell. He said, "This'll be just another couple of minutes."

"Okay."

Silence. Then, "Listen. I was thinking. Maybe we could get a coffee or something, sometime?"

Lucy blurted, "Are you asking me out?"

"In a dark room. I know. It's weird. Yes?"

It was as difficult to imagine herself drinking coffee with him as it was to _not._ She _liked_ Natsu. He was genuine. They could go to the café she passed on the way to the thrift store. She'd order a latte and he'd get a hot chocolate, she thought, because he was already so hyper to begin with, he didn't _need_ caffeine. They'd talk and laugh and maybe even play a board game. At one point in the night, she'd lean over and erase the last kiss that marred her lips.

Afterwards, he'd ask her back to his apartment. She'd go because he _was_ nice. And she'd go into his bedroom under the guise of seeing his music collection. She'd take off her clothes without prompting and he'd take off his. And then he'd touch her and she'd think about the last man that did the same, and the toilet and all the secrets she was weighed down with.

Lucy heard herself say, "I don't want to date."

"Okay." If he was put off, he didn't show it. "Then let's go as friends."

"As friends?"

"I think you're cool."

She believed him. "Okay," Lucy said. "Friends, then."

"Good. Tomorrow? Ten? I work at twelve."

That was such a short time, _nothing_ could happen in between. "Okay."

Natsu said, "We're ready for lights again, I think."

She didn't know if she could find them in this strange room. She did her best, shuffling forward and feeling Natsu's cotton T-shirt brush by her forearm. Her stomach flopped unnecessarily. She clicked the red lights on and things weren't much less intimate. He'd turned around and was only a couple of inches away. He was smiling like he knew her heart was pattering oddly. Like he knew it wouldn't take too much effort to make a friends gathering into a date. Like it wouldn't take too much to get her back into his apartment under a very different guise. Like she wouldn't turn off the lights there and take off all her clothes just _because._ Because he was funny and he was sweet and he actually seemed to like her.

"Here." He handed her the film to hold up to the red lightbulb. Lucy took it from him and used it as a distraction. She had no idea just how well it would work, though. Her mind emptied of everything but the film.

In the little black and white squares were pictures of black hearts hanging from trees. There were many of them. More than what the news had covered. Some of them were captured mid-spin, the F-stop turned up enough that the motion wasn't blurred. Some of them hung limply, as if the weight of what they'd witnessed was dragging them down.

Lucy's hands were shaking so badly, she couldn't see the rest, though it wasn't exactly fear that made her heart beat, but excitement.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The science behind this is flawed. You need to let your negatives sit for three hours before you do anything with them but I don't have three hours so *shrugs* Just know, this isn't totally correct.

Lucy thought the game would be up when Natsu realized what'd he'd developed, but to her surprise, he didn't insist they stopped. He slid the negatives into the enlarger and checked the exposure settings on a scrap piece of photo paper. When he had it right, he put the rest of the pictures through, giving each of the seven the same treatment, as if he needed to confirm that which both of them already knew. This was the real deal. A killer had taken these photos. Memories or promises of killings to come. It was unclear which they represented.

They didn't speak throughout the entire ordeal. When he was through and all of the photos were hanging off the string, they both took a step back and looked at the order. The first couple of hearts were cut out with a shaky hand. The paper lines got progressively straighter as time went on.

 _As he got more confident_ , Lucy thought darkly. _Did he get more violent, too_? She didn't know how his victims were killed. The news never reported that gruesome detail. She had a good imagination, though, and it took her to dark and rotted places. She thought, _yes_ , as the killer cut more hearts, his hands got steadier and his technique got more brutal. It seemed the natural way of things. His craft was refining.

She reached for the first picture. Natsu grabbed her hand, stopping her. Despite his profession, his palms were calloused and rough. The wear spoke of hours at the gym, shaping his body "We need to call the police."

Lucy blinked. "Oh." Of course, that's what he'd want to do. It was what any sane person would want.

Natsu took the pictures off for her, stacking them carefully, though they were still wet. Then he pulled her out of the darkroom, through the revolving door they'd used to enter. They both barely fit in one slot. That was fine, Lucy needed his shoulder pressing into hers as they shuffled out to convince herself that this was real, that she was a real girl in a real town finding something insane and totally awful and absolutely exciting.

When they were out in the store again, there was a man with a digital camera waiting for Natsu. Though she looked _at_ him, Lucy didn't see him, she looked straight through him, to the outside where the sun was beating down on the pavement, melting gum and worse things into the city floor.

The man barely looked at Lucy, either. "I'm looking to get some pictures printed?"

"That's what we do."

Lucy heard Natsu's falsely breezy words, but nothing he said really registered. Only the sound of her name spoken aloud shattered her trance-like state. "Lucy? Can you make that call we talked about? I'll take care of this."

"I don't have a phone," she informed him.

Natsu passed his from his back pocket. His hands didn't shake. Neither did his voice. He seemed steady. Not frozen or nearly as distant as she felt. Did he understand what he had now hidden under the counter? She looked into his eyes and saw he was just very good at acting. He was a little spooked. His skin was too pale and his jaw was too tight.

Lucy took the phone outside to the concrete step and let her knees give out. She used Google to search the number for the Clover Police Department. For _L. Dreyar_. He answered the phone on the second ring, sounding short-tempered. His tone eased when she introduced herself as the girl he picked up the night before and softened still when she told him what she'd found.

"Stay there," he commanded and hung up in her ear.

Lucy didn't feel like walking anywhere. She stared across the street. She could see the park from where she sat, or a corner of it, anyway. The tree she'd come to think of as Amanda Ashley's was just barely visible, the top branches spanning the sky like a living parachute. She studied it, wondering what the tree could tell her if he could tell tales. Was one of those images on the camera Amanda's heart? She wondered again, were they all of the killer's current victims, or were there some pre-emptive ones? Hearts that he'd set up but hadn't murdered under just yet?

She imagined having a heart made just for her. Those lines would be straight. Steady. The killer would have absolutely no fear by the time he got to her.

The shop door opened behind her and Natsu's customer walked out, a stack of freshly printed photos in his hand. Lucy still didn't see them. She stood and entered the building again. Natsu was where she left him except now he'd spread out the photos and was staring at them with a pinched expression.

He seemed to have found his tongue, though, asking her, "Where did you _find_ these?" She explained about the tree above where Amanda Ashley was found. His expression only pinched more. "This is..."

"Weird," Lucy finished.

He let out his air in almost a sigh and started stacking the pictures again. "The police are coming?"

"Yes." Lucy reached for the photos and Natsu held them back from her.

"What are you doing?"

"I want to see."

After a brief moment in which Lucy thought he may say no, he let them go. Lucy spread them out on the countertop. There wasn't time to study them so she used Natsu's phone to take pictures of each, to Natsu's chagrin. "What are you doing?"

"I want to look at them," she explained. "The police won't let me once they come."

"Because we're not supposed to," he said like following the rules mattered in a situation like this.

Lucy didn't listen to him; he seemed like a rule-breaker, anyway, with his dyed hair and tattoos, one of which she could see poking out of the sleeve of his T-shirt. She worked quickly, pulling up his email and sending the photos to herself. She'd have to figure out how to look at them after. She handed back his phone. He took it just as the door opened and L. Dreyar and his broody partner entered.

"Lucy."

She didn't like it that the police remembered her. She didn't like it that they smiled at her, too, though it was forced and all wrong. She didn't bother returning the gesture.

With very little formality, J. Fernandez took up residence by the counter and pelted Natsu with questions. Did his supervisor know? Did he have the authority to shut down the store? Could he show off the negatives and where they were developed, while L. Dreyar hit Lucy with very similar questions. Where did the camera come from? What time did she find it? Did it seem purposefully hidden, or was it perhaps placed to catch her attention?

The way he said the last made Lucy ask, "My attention? Specifically?"

L. Dreyar shrugged. "Did it seem that way?"

She tried to dissect him with her eyes. "Why would it?"

He didn't answer until Natsu's back retreated into the dark room. "It's possible the killer knows who you are and is toying with you."

"Who I am?" Lucy repeated.

"Miss Heartfilia," he said and she hissed.

"How do you know that?"

"Your father's concerned about your wellbeing."

"Did you tell him where I was?" Lucy fumed.

"Of course not," he said and she believed him, though she didn't understand why he'd keep something like that from someone like Jude Heartfilia.

"Why not?"

"Girls your age don't run away from luxury for no reason," he said aptly. Lucy was suddenly too hot. It was like he could see all of her secrets, all of the handprints on her body that shouldn't have been there, though that was impossible.

She wrapped her arms around her chest, covering her breasts and thus the memory as well as she could. "Are we almost done?"

He expelled his breath from his nostrils. "Did you talk to anyone at the park?"

"An old lady and her dog."

"Did you notice anyone looking at you?"

Everyone always seemed to stare at her with expressions she could never seem to read, but not today more than any other day. "No."

"Has anyone tried to contact you since coming to Clover?"

"No."

"Strangers from Magnolia? Or people, maybe, that you know but make you uncomfortable?"

"Of course not."

"Did you speak to anyone before I found you yesterday? Or after you arrived at Rose Place?"

She wished he would be quiet. She didn't want Natsu hearing. "No one special. Why are you asking all this?"

"You fit the profile. None of the other girls reported this stuff, though, getting pictures left for them, but who knows? Kids these days," he said with a healthy amount of aggravation.

"I think they probably would have said something," Lucy said. "I'm not even from Clover. The killer wouldn't know me. I'm not special to him. He wouldn't go out of his way to leave me this." She nodded to the pictures.

He huffed. "I want to believe it's an Easter egg for anyone to find, but Jellal and I didn't notice the camera in the tree the first time 'round."

Though Dreyar was visibly spooked, despite his ability to hide it, Lucy couldn't believe her good fortune, finding the camera. "Did you look at the hearts?" His eyes slid sideways to the counter. "Are they ones you've seen before? Do you think there're more victims? Or do you think those are girls he hasn't killed yet?"

"What I think is you should be leaving the policing to the police." The door to the dark room swung around again and Natsu and Detective Fernandez came out. Dreyar said, "Let's take Lucy back and then swing by the park with the techs."

J. Fernandez's gaze was like small bits of glass raking over Lucy's skin. She felt criminal under his gaze. "Sure."

"I can take Lucy home," Natsu offered. "The closed sign's up and the boss knows about it, so it's no problem."

L. Dreyar unintentionally safe-guarded Lucy's living arrangements by shooting Natsu's invitation in the foot with a brisk, "Unnecessary." His hand hovered over Lucy's shoulder. He was so careful not to touch her, though he guided her out in a manner that forbade argument. She looked at Natsu once more before getting into the back of his cruiser for the second time in as many days.

J. Fernandez got in first. As with yesterday, he turned in his seat and looked at her fully. His hazel eyes were unnerving. The kinds of eyes that made you speak when you thought you had nothing to say. They were cold in spite of his full mouth and his high cheekbones. Colder than what she was used to. No nonsense.

"You know about the curfew?"

She felt like an ant under a magnifying glass without Laxus in the car, too. He was passing around the hood. It was a short walk; it felt like it took forever. "One of the girls in Rose's told me," Lucy squeaked.

"Tell me."

"Eight PM," she said. "No one's supposed to be in the park past then."

Dreyar's door opened and he dropped into the driver's seat. "Seven-thirty would be safer. We couldn't convince the city it was worth pushing it back another half-hour. People have to walk their dogs they said. Their kids needed to play. You don't have either, right?"

"No," Lucy said.

"Then you best stay out of the park."

The car started moving. Fernandez faced forward again. Lucy drummed her fingers against her knee. "You don't know anything about the killer?"

L. Dreyar's eyes met hers in the rear view. His were slate-grey and almost as cold as his partner's. "Not enough to catch him."

"But you know it's a him?"

"Most of them are."

"Not Maud. We thought George did in her husband but she was the one with the gun," J. Fernandez spoke.

"That's a special case."

Fernandez grumbled something as Dreyar changed lanes.

Lucy heard herself ask, "How does he kill them?"

There was silence, then Fernandez spoke. "He somehow lures them away from the streetlights and gets close to them. They're always…"

"Pawed at," Dreyar threw in when his partner couldn't find a decent enough word to give to Lucy.

"The first victims suffered from asphyxiation and mild cuts to their torso. The rest have been a mixture of that and exsanguination."

Lucy tried to decide what that meant. "He cut them?"

"It doesn't matter to you what he does," Dreyar said. "So long as you don't get yourself in a position to experience it."

She needed to know, though. "He cut them enough to bleed?"

"He cut out their hearts," Fernandez said succinctly. "We still haven't found them."

Lucy fell into silence because Dreyar's glare at his partner filled the air with a toxicity that was difficult to cut through. It lasted all the way to Rose's before Dreyar spoke again. "How do you know the Dragneel kid?"

"Dragneel?"

"From the photo shop."

"Oh. Natsu and I met two days ago. He gave me a ride."

Dreyar made sure to tell her, "You should keep an eye on your friends, Lucy. Especially those that find themselves in trouble."

Lucy thought of Natsu's wide grin. "Natsu finds trouble?"

He only looked at her; she suspected he couldn't say much else; unlike his partner, he knew the boundaries and didn't try to step over them. Her curiosity was burning, though, which she suspected was the point of his comment. He couldn't say anything, but if she did some research and found things on her own, no harm, no foul, right?

She vowed then and there not to break Natsu's trust by venturing down that road. She would want anyone here to do the same to her. Everyone deserved the chance to vanish and remerge again, someone new.

* * *

Lisanna had her knees up to her chest when the phone she had buzzed. Her stomach flopped and she checked the caller ID. It was Mira. She didn't even know why she bothered to look, it was always Mira.

_Because one day it may not be._

She could worry about that when that day came.

"Hey, Mira," Lisanna answered in a falsely bright voice.

"Hey." She was smacking gum or something in Lisanna's ear. She did that when she wasn't totally comfortable. It was unfortunate that Lisanna both knew that and that she was on the receiving end of the treatment. She sighed silently.

"What's up?"

"I just wanted to check to see how the prep for the next school year was going," Mira said.

There was something off about the way she said that, though Lisanna couldn't tell what, exactly. "Great. Yep. Just went shopping today, got all my textbooks for the next year."

She made a noise like agreement. "Good. Hopefully, that wasn't too much money."

"I got it covered," Lisanna said. "I made mad cash at the bar this summer." Or she had before she'd quit two weeks ago.

"Good. I know it's hard to hold onto those single dormitories this time of year."

"It's worth every penny. I wouldn't be able to study with a ton of girls living with me," Lisanna said.

"Or at all if you weren't enrolled in this year's semester," Mira casually dropped.

Lisanna almost tripped. She recovered. "That does sound hard." Her laugh was unsteady.

"Almost as hard as paying for rent without a job at the Blue Heron," she named the bar Lisanna worked at for the last eight months.

"Sounds—"

"Oh, cut the fucking act," Mira said venomously, abruptly at the end of her leash. Lisanna's stomach churned again. "I know you're not in residence because when I went in to settle up for you for the year, there was another girl living in your room."

Lisanna felt full-on panic and spat, "Why would you do that?"

"Because you're my baby sister and I don't want you to struggle!" Mira spat back.

"I'm fine."

"Then why aren't you in school?"

"I just…" Didn't have one damn good excuse.

"Where are you?"

Lisanna almost told her. "I have to go."

" _Where are you_?"

"I love you."

"I swear to god if you're in some crack house, high and fucking pregnant on that loser's baby, I'm going to skin you. Worse. I'll—"

Lisanna never got to hear what the worst of it would be. She hung up and promptly turned off the phone. Her heart was throbbing in her ears, as loud as a war drum. It only got worse when her door opened and her roommate entered, looking frazzled and downright thrilled.

Lucy smiled at Lisanna briefly and disappeared into the washroom. Lisanna heard tires crunching out of the driveway and when she propped herself up, she saw L. Dreyar's cruiser exiting onto the road. She recognized the licence plate. She'd always had an affinity for letter and number combinations.

She gladly focused on something other than her own strife. When Lucy came out again, she asked her bluntly, "Did you find trouble?" Tara hadn't found trouble in the time Lisanna lived with her, but she told her that before she came to the shelter and figured most of everything out, she'd had a penchant for it. She'd smoked cigarettes and sang in a band that was local-famous. Their shows were call-the-cops rowdy and she used to live for the thrill of it. It sounded marvelous.

Lucy hesitated by her bed. Lisanna prepared herself for a biting tone, but her eyes tracked to Lisanna's phone and glowed. "Do you have data?"

"Yeah," Lisanna replied cautiously.

"Can I use it?"

"Why?"

Lucy bit her lip like she was ashamed.

"I want to know," Lisanna told her. There were rules at Rose's. "You can't use it until I do."

Lucy said, "It'll be easier to show you."

"It's not going to get anyone in trouble, is it?" Again, there were _rules._

Lucy shook her head and Lisanna handed over her phone. Lucy worked efficiently, pulling up her email and then entering one from one Natsu Dragneel.

As soon as Lisanna saw the hearts Lucy enlarged, she felt sick. "What is this?"

Lucy shrugged until she felt the full weight of Lisanna's glare. Then she admitted, "I found a camera in East Mill Park. In the tree Amanda Ashley was found under. When I took it to the Henry's to see what was on the film, this guy I lived with for a day developed it for me."

The fact that she'd lived with a guy for only a day was staggering, but Lisanna couldn't get past one crucial thing. "These are from those killings."

"I know. But I called the cops and did everything right, afterwards."

"Before, though? What did you do, take pictures of the pictures?"

"I just wanted to look at them." Even Lucy's ears were red and she looked supremely uncomfortable.

"Why?"

Her blush got deeper. "I'm not a psycho or anything."

Lisanna searched her eyes for Crazy anyway. It could hide in dark and forgotten corners, and camouflaged better than chameleons. She didn't come to a conclusion but took her phone out of Lucy's hands and closed the window. She wiped the history, too. She didn't want that stuff on her phone. Not even a little bit.

"Are you going to tell the Matron?" Lucy's voice was high-pitched with panic.

Lisanna released a very shaky breath. "No."

Lucy's panic turned to eagerness in a blink of an eye. "Then can I look at them again?"

She said in the same tone, "No."

She opened her mouth to argue, then seemed to think better of it, choosing instead to act like the conversation had never happened. She started getting ready for bed, taking her hair out of its braid and finding clothes to change into. Lisanna turned on her side and acted, too, imagining that she was alone.

The pretending didn't stop there. Lucy turned out the lights and for two whole hours, she acted like she was asleep. Lisanna heard her get up from the squeaking bed and pad across the room. She let her sneak out and all the way down the stairs, too, before rising and tiptoeing after her.

She found her in the office Miss Porlyusica set up for the girls. There were an ancient computer and a tired printer that had printed off countless resumes and searched thousands of jobs. Both were up and buzzing, getting ready to work one more trick.

She looked back over her shoulder to make sure she was alone and when she spied Lisanna leaning her shoulder against the doorframe, the sheer look of panic that flitted across her face reminded Lisanna that she herself had worn that look a time or two in her life.

She pushed the thoughts away and said in a croaking whisper, "That's not what that printer's for." It wasn't even colour, just black and white, the levels off.

Lucy flushed. "Lisanna…"

"Tell me why you're doing it. Did the Black Heart threaten you? Do you know him?"

"No."

"Then what? Why are you printing off pictures at three in the morning? You said you weren't psycho but that's _crazy_." She didn't know Lucy well at all but she didn't want to sleep in the same room with a girl with more baggage than she had.

The last page came out. Lucy turned everything off again, then whispered, "Come upstairs."

"Where you'll assure me you're not a psycho?"

Lucy rolled her eyes. "I'm _not._ "

"That's what I'd say, too."

"Just come."

Lisanna trailed closely behind her, carefully and quietly. It was probably for nought. Miss Porlyusica's door was closed but she didn't imagine that their ancient Matron didn't know that they were mucking about.

In their room again, Lucy closed the door behind Lisanna and leaned against it, clutching her pictures to her rapidly-rising chest. She'd found a tank top to replace her nightgown; it didn't fit her much better. She just had so much of _everything_. Lisanna was glad they never met when she was young. She would have been wickedly jealous. She didn't get any shape at all until she was seventeen.

"Well?" Lisanna prodded because it didn't seem like Lucy was going to be forthcoming.

"I followed the murders."

"You saw them?" Lisanna squeaked.

" _No_." Lucy shook her head so hard, her hair whipped in front of her eyes and stuck to her damp lips. She pushed it away impatiently. "I collect news clippings. And stuff."

"About the Black Heart?"

"And other things," Lucy said meekly.

"Like _what_? What other things?"

"Other killings. Muggings. I don't know. Just stuff."

"Why?"

She bit her lip white. "Interest, I suppose."

People were usually interested in baseball card collections or figurines. Not clippings from violent killings. Lisanna again searched her for Crazy but it was almost impossible to spot when it was so dark. "So. Now you've found his camera. You've printed off his sick pictures. What comes after?"

"I'm going to add this to my photo album in the Black Heart section."

It felt like summoning the devil himself. Lisanna heard herself ask, "Can I see it?" She didn't know _why_ she asked that. She didn't want to. She didn't want to see _any_ of that stuff. The world was so ugly already.

Lucy visibly wavered, torn, Lisanna had to imagine, between a life-long habit of hiding her more macabre side and the want to share that part of herself with someone that didn't know the old Lucy, the girl everyone used to think she was. She could be anyone in the world right now. More importantly, she could be herself. "I guess."

Lisanna followed her to the bed and sat on the mattress beside Lucy without waiting for permission. Lucy took the photo album out from under her covers; her knuckles were white from gripping it so hard. She took in a shaky breath and let it out again. "If you're going to be mean about it, that's fine, but just don't tell anyone else, okay?"

"I wouldn't be mean."

"I don't know that. Just promise."

"I tell you my weirdest secret if it'll make you feel better."

Lucy's brows furrowed, weighing the cost. "What could be worse than this?"

Lisanna was glad to shed the burden and asked, "Do you ever think the very worst thing and then have it happen?"

"What do you mean?" Lucy asked.

Lisanna dragged her fingers over the worn yellow quilt, trying to decide how to proceed. _Just say it._ That was generally the best way. "There was one time, my boyfriend and I were watching something stupid. Some cartoon. Like Danny Phantom or something. And I just had this tickle in the back of my head. And I looked at him and I said, 'You know what's really sad?' and he said, "What, kitten?'"

"Kitten?" Lucy interrupted.

A laugh scraped out of her throat. "I have a pair of cat ears that he loves. He calls me kitten." In a rough voice that made her warm all over. Made her mind melt and her mouth curl and all of her thoughts dry up. _Kitten._

"Lisanna?"

She shook herself. "I said, 'It's sad when a busload of kids gets into an accident.' He agreed and flipped the channel and the news was on. A bus of grade-schoolers had gone over the guardrail out on the highway. No one lived."

Lucy stared at her. "Weird, but so what?"

"Other things have happened, too. One time, I was driving, and a motorcyclist whipped past me. And I thought, wouldn't it be awful if he lost control of his bike and got hit by a car?"

"Law of averages," Lucy said. "He was acting stupid and stupid came for him."

"I envisioned my sister getting stung by a wasp and it happened."

"Were you outside?"

"Yeah."

"Eating something sweet?"

"Drinking cider."

"That's nature."

"There was one time—"

"You're not psychic," Lucy said explicitly.

"I never said I was."

"Then what are you trying to say?"

Her biggest secret yet. "I knew Amanda Ashley."

Lucy turned from dismissive to interested. "You did?"

"Yeah. She was mean." It felt wrong to think of the dead in such terms but the truth was the truth was the truth. "I never said this to anyone, but one day just before midterms ended, she came by the med lab and stole my bacteria culture because I kissed her boyfriend. I didn't even know they were dating. He didn't say anything to me."

"I thought you had a boyfriend? Why were you kissing other boys?" Lucy asked.

Lisanna didn't think she blushed easily anymore but that was a lie. "Sometimes, he liked that."

All she said was, "Oh."

"Anyway. That was my final project. When she took out my yeast culture, she replaced it with streptococcus which is a big _no_ at the university _._ We're not supposed to grow harmful bacteria without getting clearance first. I didn't get expelled because that was one of the labs that had cameras in it, but that was her _goal_. She got kicked out but I wasn't happy. I wanted her to die." And the worst yet. "And then she did."

"You can't just wish a person dead and have it happen," Lucy said after a moment's pause. "That's coincidence. All of it."

Despite her rebuke, Lisanna could see the goosebumps rise on her arms. "Maybe."

Lucy wasn't done, though. "Sometimes things happen and it's not your fault."

It sounded like she was trying to convince herself, and it sounded like she didn't like where her mind was going. Lisanna changed the subject. More or less. "Do you want help cutting out your photos and pasting them? I have scissors. And glue."

Lucy gazed down at her stack of photos and then out the window. The horizon was pink. "If you want."

She wasn't going to sleep until those photos were pasted to page. They felt too free, able to do damage that even she couldn't fathom.

She counted them as she went and tried to name the girls she thought they belonged to. There were more than the ones she and the rest of the world knew of.

The Black Heart had been busy.


	5. Chapter 5

The sun had risen hours ago. Lucy sat in its glow with her photo album on her lap open to the Black Heart pictures. She studied each with a critical eye and made notes in the margins and was rewarded for her tenacity. When she looked very carefully, in the corner of each heart was a letter. She found an A, L, an S and an N so far and matched the letters with their corresponding victims, A for Amanda Ashley, L for Lauren Graham, S for Sara Philips, and N for Nicole Vince. There was a significance to the letters, she knew it, the Black Heart was diligent and careful in everything he did, but she just couldn't see it yet.

She was chilled but eager to match the rest of the hearts with the names of the deceased the media had published and to find those that the media either didn't know about or hadn't reported on. She'd like to ask the police if they'd kept some victims private but she didn't know if she could just hunt down Detective Dreyar and pepper him with questions like that.

Someone knocked on her door, scaring her so badly, she yelped. The door handle turned. Lucy scrabbled to hide her book under the covers. She got it covered by a blanket just as Rose Place's resident redhead came in. "Lucy."

Lucy tried to remember her name. "Hi, Erza."

"You haven't been down for breakfast yet."

She didn't scold her, so Lucy thought _Erza_ was right. "I had a granola bar," she lied.

Erza crossed her arms over her chest and looked at her in a way that made Lucy want to squirm. She held still and kept her eyes on her. She'd learned tricks over the years. Lie with a straight face, push her food around her plate and shred it up small so it made it _seem_ like she'd eaten something, taking a small handful and passing it to her family dog when her father was looking down at his plate.

He'd catch her, though. Always. He'd touch her ribs or notice the way her breasts weren't filling out her bra and sometimes, that attention was worse than his usual. She didn't think Erza would be so astute, though.

Erza shattered Lucy's thoughts by saying, "Some of the girls and I are going to the mall today to get job applications. Do you want to come?"

Lucy couldn't think of a polite way to say no so she nodded and smiled. "I'd like that."

Erza beamed. "We're leaving in twenty, just as soon as Cheria gets out of the washroom."

When Lucy was alone, she dressed in her new purple dress. Its neckline swooped low and the skirt rested on her mid-thigh. She glanced in the mirror. It was too tight around her waist and accentuated too many things. Her hips and when she turned sideways, her breasts. Frustrated, Lucy grabbed the hem with the intention of stripping it off. The door opened, though, and Lisanna came through.

"That's a cute dress," were the first words out of her mouth. "It looks really good on you."

Lucy let the hem go, her sails deflated. "You don't think it's too much?"

Lisanna furrowed her brow. "Too much of what? It's perfect for you. You must have thought so, too, because you bought it."

Lucy didn't know anymore. She looked at herself again in the mirror. Lisanna came over and tugged the skirt straight and fussed with the waist, her hands gentle and sure and never lingering the way they shouldn't, unlike the last person to be this close to her. The material sat as it was supposed to and suddenly, everything Lucy had picked apart before looked _okay_ now.

"See?" Lisanna left her side and started going through her things. She pulled out a romper with roses and skulls stenciled all over the front. She stripped right there and pulled on a black push-up bra and a matching pair of black underwear. She was more lavish than most girls Lucy knew, the lines around her waist not gym-rigid or anorexic hard. She was full and soft and it looked good on her.

Lucy looked at herself again.

Lisanna asked, "You still don't like it?"

Lucy did a small twirl. Irrational her deigned to take a backseat for the time being. "I don't know. Maybe. It's okay. Yeah."

Lisanna smiled and offered Lucy a headband with a large, retro-style purple bow. "It'll look cute."

Lucy took it and tried it on. It did look cute. And the dress… The longer she looked at herself in the mirror, the better she thought she looked. She would swing on the view, she always did, but she'd take it for now.

* * *

The Clover Mall was smaller than Magnolia's but still gigantic. Erza dragged them from store to store. She'd always look at their clothing first and try some on without ever the intention of buying, and then ask the overseeing staff for an application. Some gave them to her with smiles, others with barely-contained glowers.

When Erza wondered at their crankiness, Lucy suggested, "Maybe you shouldn't try on a pile of clothes first?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Erza asked intensely. "I have to know if I like their product before I work for them, otherwise, my work is meaningless."

"It's just a retail position," she muttered.

"It's not _just_ a retail position," Erza chastised. "It's the position that's going to help me change my life forever. You'd do better if you had the same views."

Lucy opened her mouth and closed it, properly scolded. "Sorry." Erza was already moving off, though, and missed her apology.

Lisanna grasped her hand. "Don't worry about her. She's in a mood."

"Why?"

Lisanna looked around, confirming that no one was listening. "Last night, they announced that they caught the guy that was rough with her. Cheria said she was _mad._ "

"Shouldn't that make her happy?"

Lisanna shrugged her shoulders. "Erza's…"

"I found a store for you, Lucy." Erza's voice came from right beside her. Lucy's heart leapt into her throat. She turned and looked into Erza's one lively eye. "You did?"

"Cheria says she doesn't want to work there and neither do I, so you can ask for an application." Erza slung her arm through Lucy's and pulled her out of Lisanna's grasp. Lucy struggled to catch up; her head was spinning and she was suddenly too hot. "Have you ever asked for an application before?"

"Um… No," Lucy fumbled.

"Just walk in there, head high, and introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Lucy. I love this store or some nonsense, can I have a job application? Okay?"

"I guess."

"Break a leg." Erza pushed Lucy between the shoulder blades and Lucy stumbled into the store.

There were knickknacks everywhere, fairies and toadstools, casts of wolves and other animals, necklaces and rings and bracelets made of semi-precious stones, a wall of incents and candles, and at the back, artistic carvings of wizards in battle, and birds in flight. There were offbeat games, like Munchkin and Magic the Gathering on one wall, Lord of the Rings Monopoly, and beside that was an entire wall dedicated to crystals, the kinds people thought offered healing properties or luck.

There was a man at the front counter, hair auburn and glasses on his nose. He was talking to a woman. She moved on and his eyes landed on Lucy. She swallowed; her throat felt suddenly small and her stomach was full of butterflies.

"Can I help you?"

Lucy took a step closer so she didn't have to yell throughout the store. The counter the man stood behind was glass and inside was more jewellery and stones, and an Ouija board. Lucy looked at the eyes staring back at her, and the cursor, and the letters. They swam in her vision.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"Your—store is nice," Lucy mumbled. That's what she was supposed to say. "And I'd like an application." _Make eye contact!_ She looked up from the Ouija board too fast and met his eyes. They were nice, hazel, she thought, but the world was spinning so hard, she couldn't be sure.

The man laughed. "Yeah, absolutely. You're in luck, we just had one of our girls say she was going back to school, so we're looking. Do you have any experience?"

"No."

"That's okay. You seem nice, that's half the battle." He twisted away from her to get something behind the counter. Black spots popped up in Lucy's vision. She recognized what was happening and bit her cheek hard to keep it at bay but it was no use. Her vision got dark and her knees gave way. She didn't feel herself hit the floor.

* * *

While Lucy was in Green Earth getting an application and Erza and Cheria were watching from the sidelines, Lisanna drifted towards Lucky Devil tattoos and piercings. She needed a new barbell for her eyebrow and there was a pair of rainbow arm warmers that she thought were cute when they passed them by.

The whole thing cost her forty dollars. She asked the man behind the counter, tall and lanky, with a hank of dark hair that hung over his pale and admittedly handsome face, for an application to make it all seem worth it. Erza would approve, even if Lisanna did spend some of her meagre savings to get it.

Armed with a stiff application page and a bag, she exited the store again. She turned towards Green Earth but halted, her attention caught by a man standing at the fountains. He smiled at her and her heart skipped beat.

He waved her in even as he walked backward through the mall. Lisanna followed him as if she could do nothing else, down the hallway with the washrooms. He held open the Exit door at the end of the hallway. She hesitated. It was bright outside and the light made his hair, where it was long and dyed shimmer. She loved that colour. Like she loved him.

"Come on," he said and she unstuck, going to him.

The sunlight was searing and the heat oppressing coming off the black pavement. Lisanna immediately began to sweat. The alley behind the mall smelled like baking cardboard and cigarette butts. And his cologne. Soon, the last was _all_ she could smell, he'd pushed her up against the hot brick wall and touched her cheek with a rough finger. The tip was cut and the scab scraped her. She shivered, fearful, she thought.

"It's been a long time, kitten."

"I know."

"You don't return my texts. You don't call."

"I know," she said again.

"I've been looking for you."

"I know."

"I wish you'd tell me where you've been hiding."

"I know." He'd like that very much.

"Because I've missed you." His breath brushed her lips. Lisanna's shaking intensified.

"I know."

He pressed his mouth to hers and she thought she would fall if he wasn't holding her up, both hands on both of her shoulders. He deepened the kiss and she allowed for it, thrilled. No one needed her like he did, not ever.

He pawed her over her romper, grabbing her breasts and squeezing gently, pushing into her middle so she could feel how hard he was. His breathing increased and she got hot, _hot_ , hot enough to be dizzy.

She kept her arms at her sides while he touched her, though she wanted to reciprocate.

His mouth disappeared. She felt its absence like a hole in her heart. Lisanna opened her eyes and realized that two women on break had come out, cigarettes in their mouths. They looked at the pair and turned away.

He bent and kissed her once again, swiftly on the mouth. "I'll see you around, kitten." Then he was gone.

Lisanna remained where she was, staring out at Clover, feeling his lips still on hers. Miss Porlyusica would not approve. She would not approve at all. Lisanna tried to recall _why_ she hadn't contacted him. She could see the parking lot in her mind's eye, and when she wiggled her toes in her sandals, she could almost imagine that _this_ puckered concrete was _that_ puckered concrete.

The back door banged open again and this time, it was Erza that came out. " _There_ you are. I've been looking everywhere for you."

"Sorry," Lisanna murmured.

"Lucy fainted."

Thoughts of parking lots cast in moonlight fled her mind. "She did? Why?"

"The paramedics said her blood sugar was low. She's awake now. They gave her juice and some cookies. We're going to go to the food court and then go home."

Lisanna picked herself up off the wall and joined Erza inside. There was a small crowd around Green Earth. Lucy was at its centre with a tall paramedic next to her, watching her eat the cookie. She answered questions for him, like when she last ate. She lied, telling him the night before, Lisanna could hear it in her voice.

The paramedic looked her over skeptically and explained to her the importance of eating regularly throughout the day. Lucy looked properly humiliated. When the paramedic and his partner left, Erza took their place, face stern.

"Let's go to the food court."

It seemed Lucy knew better than to argue. Together, the four of them moved slowly through the mall. Erza and Cheria collected a few dollars from everyone and then left Lucy at a table and went to get them all a platter from a Greek restaurant. Lisanna sat with her, waiting for their return. Lucy's eyes were too wide and too damp like she was trying not to blink, otherwise, she'd cry.

"Are you okay?" Lisanna nudged.

"Embarrassed," she lamented. "Everyone was staring."

"Erza said your blood sugar was low."

"I guess I forgot to have breakfast," Lucy said flippantly. Lisanna let her have the lie; she wouldn't be saying anything different if she was in her shoes.

A shadow fell over the table. Lisanna looked up into dark eyes and moved her mouth into a smile; that's what you did when you met strangers. This stranger had a mouth that was wide and expressive, his teeth absurdly white. His cheeks were dimpled and tanned, so his pink hair didn't look absolutely ridiculous.

Lisanna clutched her Lucky Devil's tattoo bag. Pink hair had eyes for Lucy, though he did have a smile for Lisanna. "Hey, Lucy."

Lucy's head jerked around and her eyes got wider. "Natsu." The one that developed her pictures, Lisanna remembered.

He pulled out one of the open two chairs and sat like he belonged. "We keep running into each other."

Lucy's neck was red. "Lisanna, this is Natsu. Natsu this is… one of my roommates." Her eyes were pleading with Lisanna not to say too much. Lisanna had learned to lie with the best of them, though, just as long as it wasn't Mira breathing down her neck.

She put on her most charming smile and extended her hand. "Hi."

"Nice to meet you." Natsu took her offered hand in his calloused one. Lisanna felt a small, unexplainable thrill that she quashed. Besides, he was back to looking at Lucy again. He focused mainly on her eyes but his gaze kept dropping to her mouth and his intentions were clear, at least to Lisanna. He liked her quite a lot.

"Did you want to stop by this weekend?" Natsu was asking. "Happy and I do this annual cart race thing and this year, he's got another partner and I'm on my own."

"Cart race?" Lucy repeated.

"It's just like it sounds," Natsu assured her. "We get drunk, take the Tostenda shopping carts from the location on Main to that huge hill and then we sit in them and race to the bottom."

"That sounds really dangerous," she informed him.

"We wear helmets, and hockey gear," he rebuked. "No one's ever cracked their head open."

"How many broken bones have you guys had?" Lucy asked skeptically.

"If it's not a little bit dangerous, it's not fun," he said back.

She smiled; it reached her eyes but Lisanna could see that she was reluctant to let it there.

"Text me when you know."

"I don't have a phone, remember?" Lucy asked.

"You can borrow mine," Lisanna spoke up. Both turned to her, Natsu with relief on his face and Lucy with slight horror. Lisanna took out her phone and started adding Natsu as a contact. Lucy didn't _have_ to call him if she didn't want, she could send him on his way, but Lisanna didn't think he'd leave here today without her having some way of contacting him.

Erza and Cheria appeared at the table, carrying a tray loaded with food and looking at Natsu chillily as if he were an outsider. Lucy side-eyed the meal queasily. Lisanna ignored her like Natsu ignored the other girls, listening to Natsu's voice as he rhymed off his number.

"Thanks," Lisanna said at last and earned herself another smile.

"I'll talk to you soon, Lucy. Lisanna."

Lisanna watched his retreating back thoughtfully.

* * *

That evening, Lucy chewed on a piece of hair, looking at her book, while Lisanna finished the last pages of her Clive Barker. Lucy kept rustling and turning pages. Lisanna was distracted enough that she couldn't focus. And it was hot. Sticky, sticky hot. Can't-sleep kind of hot.

She got up and opened the window to its maximum and then she worked on getting the screen out. Lucy looked over, startled.

"What are you doing?"

"It's too hot in here."

"So you're pulling the screen out?"

"I'm sitting on the roof," Lisanna explained. Tara had taught her that trick a few days before she left. The screen came out with a pop and Lisanna set it on the ground under the window. She then yanked up her shorts and slid over the sill without another look back at Lucy.

The shingles were warm still but the air wasn't suffocating out here, not the way it was in the room, still and oppressive. Lisanna lay back on the shingles and sighed. Lucy's shadow fell out over her a moment later and Lisanna grinned. "Welcome to paradise."

"Why don't we just go sit on the front porch?"

"Miss Porlyusica doesn't like us out at night," Lisanna explained. "But no one looks _up_ , so this is okay."

Lucy settled back and got comfortable. Long minutes passed. Lisanna broke the silence. "Can I ask you something kind of personal?"

"What?" Lucy asked warily. It was obvious she expected a question on her eating habits; Lisanna didn't care to delve into that, not tonight.

"What are you going to do about Natsu?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, shopping cart races seem like a lot of fun."

"He might get the wrong idea."

"And what's the right one?" Lisanna nudged.

Lucy said, "I don't want a boyfriend right now."

"Then you and I should go. I'll put on the helmet and the hockey gear and you can push me down the hill in a rickety cart and we'll beat Natsu and whatever partner he wrestles up."

Lucy laughed. "You wouldn't."

"I have a penchant for danger," Lisanna said blissfully. "Give me a helmet and a shopping cart and I'll make mincemeat of every beautiful boy that looks my way."

Lucy cackled. "Can you imagine his face?"

Lisanna laughed, too. "We have to do it."

Lucy sobered. "You just said we couldn't go out at night, though."

Lisanna stood and waltzed to the edge of the roof. There were eyes on her, she could feel them, and she felt powerful, untouchable, not by the repressive heat, not by fear. "Ah. But we're outside right now."

" _Lisanna_." Lucy's eyes were medallion-wide like she expected Lisanna to leave her arms wide-open and to take that extra step back into the unknown. She could. She would. She might. She felt free enough.

Lucy took her hand and pulled her back down by her side. Lisanna fell, too frenzied for laughter. She breathed too hard.

"Are you crazy?"

"Sometimes."

Lucy looked at her in disbelief. Then she looked at the sky as if looking at Lisanna was _too much_.

Lisanna's heart took a long time to calm. When it did, she asked, "Can I ask you something else?"

" _What_?"

Lisanna ignored the snap in her voice. "What's your plan for the Black Heart pictures?"

"Study them." Lucy sounded _glad_ to have something else to talk about so they didn't have to discuss what just happened. Lisanna wasn't going to let her leave the crazy behind.

"My boyfriend says he can see ghosts."

"Ghosts don't exist," Lucy rebuked.

"We talked to one once," Lisanna said back. "I think."

" _How_?"

"With an Ouija board."

Lucy pursed her lips. "I don't think that actually works."

"I don't know enough about the world to say if it does or doesn't," Lisanna responded. "But we could try."

"And do _what?_ " Lucy asked.

"We'll ask Amanda Ashley how she died. Who killed her. And when we know, we'll tell Detective Dreyar and Fernandez and they'll catch the killer."

"They need evidence," she said.

"Maybe Amanda can give us that?" Lisanna said.

Lucy settled down on the roof and went back to looking at the stars; that was the end of the conversation, Lisanna gathered. She settled back, too, but her mind wouldn't quieten. She tried to distract it. "I think Natsu's nice. Or he seems that way."

Lucy plucked at the tar on the roof. "He is."

"Then why the runaround?"

"It's not a runaround. I just don't know if I can give him the chance he deserves."

"Is it about another man?"

Lucy scrunched up her face. "Kinda?"

"Rose's has a lot of secrets," Lisanna prodded. "It's where things like that come to die. You have to let them go first, though." At least, it felt that way. These walls had seen and never spoken of many, many horrors.

Lucy thought about her next words long and hard. Finally, she admitted, "I keep thinking about the last man that kissed me. I don't want it to be the last kiss I ever have, but…"

"But you don't know if you can kiss someone else to erase it?" Lisanna suggested.

"Something like that," Lucy said miserably.

"Those things are best treated like a Band-Aid," Lisanna told the stars.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you hate kissing girls?"

"I've never kissed one," Lucy said.

Lisanna said, "The first girl I ever kissed was my best friend. She said it was goodnight. I never kissed anyone goodnight that way before or after, though. I didn't think about any boy that kissed me before that, either." Or really any of the ones that kissed her afterwards. It wasn't the same.

She could practically hear Lucy's thoughts churning. Finally, she sat up on her elbows. "Do it."

Lisanna quarter-smiled and kissed Lucy square on the mouth without further prompting. A press of lips that lasted as long as any half-decent kiss might, and then she pulled away.

Lucy touched her mouth, eyes thoughtful. And then she laughed. Lisanna joined her and leaned back on the roof. "Tell me about the first person you kissed."


	6. Chapter 6

Every morning, Lisanna watched Lucy watch the news raptly for any word of the Black Heart, but seven days had passed since the latest victim was found and the killer had been silent. In that time, Mira tried to call her twice more with her own phone and then once with an unknown number. Lisanna was wise to her sister's tactics, though, and didn't answer. Her silence got her a strongly-worded voicemail that dissolved into tears at the end. She felt bad but it was A Lot. Her mind kept swirling between parking lots and alleyways, between moonlit pavement and sweet, hot kisses. Between fear and longing. Back and forth. She couldn't see any way out of the mess around her and adding Mira to the mix just felt wrong.

She did, however, convince Lucy to text Natsu and ask him for the location of their cart race, pleading that she was bored, so, so bored, and she needed some excitement. And distraction. She thought she was going to go crazy, just sitting in Rose's, agonizing over application forms and online job ads for things like cooks and servers. She was afraid to try too hard. It would only be a short drive for Mira to find her in Clover. She was afraid not to try at all. Every position at the shelter was tenuous and there were a lot of deserving girls that needed a place to get their lives together.

She didn't really care for life's prickliness.

When Saturday came along and the afternoon was bleeding into the evening, she took a little bit of the money she made walking Rose Place's neighbour's dog three days before and left Rose's with Lucy at her side. No sneaking out required. Miss Porlyusica had taken their newest recruit, a young girl with hair as blue as the ocean, to a paediatrics appointment. The way Miss Porlyusica was acting, Lisanna didn't think Wendy was going to be an in-and-out resident. Miss Porlyusica was snappier than usual, and always pale like a ghost had walked right up to her and held her by the throat. She would say nothing, though. She could teach mimes how to be silent, and the news gave up no information on their newest member.

Someone drove by in a car and whistled loudly. Lisanna jumped. Lucy took her hand and held it. She kept her fingers tangled in Lisanna's through the crosswalk and into the busy, well-lit mall, releasing her only when they had to separate to let a mother and her stroller roll past. Neither one talked about the strained atmosphere in the city; Lisanna mostly because she couldn't tell if it was the residents or just _her,_ thinking about girls thrown under trees, the pointed end of a black heart spinning over their lifeless eyes.

"I don't know if I can do this," Lucy warbled. Lisanna came back to the present and saw that they were outside Green Earth already.

"Sure you can."

"That's the guy that saw me faint," she protested.

Lisanna looked through the storefront and saw a tall and handsome man behind the counter. He had a nice and easy smile, the kind of smile that made girls feel comfortable. Those were not the smiles she preferred, she liked hers with a little more razor edge to them, but razors cut and girls bled.

She cleared her head of strange thoughts. "Just do it. Who cares what he thinks if he tells you no? This is your life and you have to try."

"You're right." Lucy straightened her spine with a fortitude Lisanna didn't know she had and walked into the store. The clerk looked up. Lisanna couldn't hear them from her position but she thought judging by the look on his face, he was happy to see her.

When Lucy remerged five minutes later, she told Lisanna his name was Loke and he'd asked her when she could start. Lisanna could barely contain her grin.

"What'd you tell him?"

"Monday."

Lisanna squealed for her unintentionally. "Awesome."

Lucy shrugged, much more subdued. "I guess. I asked him about the Ouija board. It's seventy-five dollars."

"Jesus. We can make one. I saw it once. Someone cut up letters from a newspaper and pasted it on Bristol board. We can use cardboard, though, I saw a pile behind Rose's."

Lucy looked at her suspiciously. "What were you doing behind there?"

Lisanna's cheeks warmed. She shrugged nonchalantly, desperately trying to think of a way to explain she'd been waiting for _him_. He always seemed to find her when she needed him most and least, all she ever had to do was think about him. There was no way to say all of that tactfully, though, so she just said, "Sometimes, I take out the recycling. You'll be put on that rotation, too."

Lucy accepted her answer.

They stopped by Lucky Devil, too, so Lisanna could hand over her application. She wasn't offered a job on the spot but she wasn't very sad about it. On her way out, she hunted the corridors for a familiar face. She didn't see him.

Their next stop was the Thrift Store. The sun was setting now and Lisanna was watching shadows on the street with wariness, Lucy with barely-contained excitement. They came to an intersection. If they went to the road further South, they'd get to the Thrift Store quickly, but this one on the North would take them past the park. "Let's go this way," Lucy decided, motioning to the one on the North.

Lisanna thought she _should_ be the voice of reason, but there had been a shadow to Lucy's eyes ever since she arrived at Rose's and it wasn't as dark then; gone was the uncertain girl from Green Earth. She was almost full of glee. So what if that glee was for the danger?

A man stepped out of a shadow across the road. Lisanna's heart was in her throat well before she saw the bulldog on a leash in front of him. He looked their way, thinking, obviously, the same thing Lisanna had been thinking for that brief moment in time and put his eyes on the sidewalk in front of him and walked quickly. Girls were afraid and men were afraid of being accused.

"You could cut the tension with a knife," Lucy murmured.

"Maybe we should go back?" Lisanna suggested softly.

"To _Rose's_?"

"Yeah. Maybe."

"Coming out here was _your_ idea."

Hours ago, when she'd felt impulsive and manic. Now she was levelling out, kept on the ground by fear. "I didn't want to come by the park, though."

Lucy turned her head. The fading sunlight was burnishing her hair scarlet and bronze and making shadows on her cheeks. She'd lost weight since coming to Rose's just days before. "I'm not afraid."

Not of killers, not of the dark. Lucy's fears were much more mundane than that. Lisanna impulsively asked, "Why are you at Rose's?" She then slammed her lips together. You were offered that kind of information, but you didn't _ask._ "Sorry. You don't have to answer that."

Lucy bit her cheek and her cheekbone was _sharp_ like a piece of sheet metal; it was the sunlight and shadows playing tricks, but Lisanna saw the girl she could be if she kept moving her food around on her plate and ripping it up into little pieces so it looked like she'd eaten something. "My dad. He used to—when it was just us." She trailed off but from what little she knew about her, Lisanna thought she knew what Lucy meant.

She could say _I'm sorry_ but what good would it do? Lucy had changed her life and gotten away from it but the past still happened and no amount of _sorrys_ would change that.

"What about you?"

Lisanna was an expert at dancing around the subject now and told her simply, "I saw something I shouldn't have."

Lucy let it go, much more interested in the car ahead of them, parked in a little laneway by the park. The door was opening and a tall man was getting out. Lisanna squinted; for a brief moment, his face was illuminated by the interior light in his car. Her heart sunk and she tried to hide behind Lucy a little more. It was too late.

"Lisanna. Lucy." _L. Dreyar_ said her name much differently tonight than he had the first time he met her. There was a lot more worry in his tone now and a lot less heat, though she could still imagine the way he prolonged the way he said the _anna_ of her name, the deep, dark cadence of his voice. It almost gave her goosebumps and it made her shake to think of the first time she'd met him, opening his car door and climbing into the passenger's seat, smelling the sweat of his shift on him, the hopelessness, the near-defeat. Had he gone to another woman since then? Maybe he'd picked Flare up and didn't see how much of a mess she was. She still felt stupid for the way she stammered and quivered, for the way her dress broke.

"Detective." Lucy was much more composed. At least, seemingly.

"What are you ladies doing out so late?"

Lucy made a show of checking her watch. "It's seven-thirty. The curfew is at eight."

The curfew was a sensitive topic for the detective, Lisanna could see. His jaw was screwed tight. "By the time you get home, it'll be eight. Hurry it along."

But Lucy wasn't. "What are you doing here?"

"Patrolling." Lisanna hadn't seen Dreyar's partner until he stepped out from the park path. He moved like a wraith. It was unsettling, though many things about him were unsettling. The levelled way his eyes sawed through her, his tattoo, the way he moved, almost like a predator. If she were a criminal and he was on her tail, she may just lay down and wait for him to catch her. To run, she thought, would be futile. He seemed the type of man that was dogged in his pursuit.

"Has there been another murder?" Lucy asked immediately.

"Would you girls get out of here?" Dreyar avoided.

"There was, wasn't there? The news hasn't even reported on it yet. I knew he would strike again," Lucy gushed. "He can't help it."

Dreyar got very serious. "Have you had any more contact with anyone or anything relating to the murders?"

"No, of course not. I would have said something."

"Then, enough."

Lucy couldn't help herself and completely ignored his warnings. "Don't you think the Black Heart will know that you're patrolling and find a new place to put his victims?"

"His actions have all been ritual so far," Fernandez said despite his partner's glare.

"But now there are police," Lucy retorted. "That would be enough to make me change my habits."

"But you're not an obsessive serial killer," Fernandez returned.

"But if I _was—"_

"You'd know that a lot of this is compulsion and not much of a choice."

Lisanna shivered. Lucy did not. She considered his words. "Maybe you should make your presence a little less obvious—or, have you tried using one of your female detectives for bait? I saw that once on a TV show—"

"Lucy," Dreyar interrupted. "Give your application to the police if you want to be a cop. You're just a civilian right now, and your daylight is getting away from you. Hurry it along."

That shut Lucy right up and gave her a panicked look. She may have been interested in killers and police work, but she did not want to be involved. Curious, Lisanna thought and wondered if her roommate had run-ins with the police before.

"Good luck," Lisanna murmured. Dreyar would barely look at her and when he did, he was very, very careful to keep his eyes on her face. That was a man ashamed and his shame only fueled her own. She took Lucy's hand and hurried away from them.

"And get away from the park," Dreyar called after them. Lisanna crossed the road just as soon as it was safe and took the next street towards the Thrift Shop. She hoped it would still be open; the summer hours were longer than the winter, for sure, but it was getting late.

"I can't believe another girl's been killed."

"They didn't say that."

"But they didn't _not,_ " Lucy said. "Do you think they found her body or do you think she's just missing? All the girls before weren't reported missing. No one knew that they were dead until their bodies showed up. Which means that the killer acts fast. But also thoroughly. You heard the detectives, he's ritualistic. So he must spy on them before he decides to kill them." She snapped her fingers. "Those hearts are made _before_. He must have a pile of them. He watches the girls and then he approaches them. Can you imagine, him going to his dresser in some dingy room, and picking up some construction-paper heart made for a girl he's been watching all week? He wouldn't put it in his pocket, that would bend the edges of the paper. He probably carries a bag with him. The same bag he keeps his knife in, I bet.

"He probably chooses the trees before he kills them, too, and strings the hearts up pre-emptively. And then…" She was really getting into this, Lisanna could see, imagining his every move, putting herself into that position. "The detectives said he lures them away from the streets. But who in their right mind would go walking at night?"

Lisanna looked at her dryly. "Us?"

Lucy rolled her eyes. "It's probably girls that work late, or girls with late classes, girls that think they won't be caught off-guard."

"Girls like _us_?" Lisanna suggested again. Invincible girls. Girls without much to lose. Lisanna could see the goosebumps on Lucy's arms.

"He's probably handsome and charming. Or someone the girls think they can trust."

Lisanna thought of all the people she'd walk out from under a streetlamp for. It wasn't many. The police. Someone that may need help. Someone she knew. The list was grievously small.

"Once he gets them away from the lamps and into the park, he paws at them. That's what the detectives said. They were trying not to scare me. Do you think that means he has sex with them?"

"I don't know," Lisanna said uncomfortably.

Lucy was oblivious to Lisanna's discomfort. "Then he strangles them and cuts out their hearts. And he must be good at it. He can do it quickly. Though, I suppose the police didn't say if he did it with any skill. I could probably cut out a heart, too, if I was doing a sloppy job and I had some practice beforehand. What does he _do_ with them, though? That detective, Fernandez? He said that they hadn't found the hearts yet."

Lisanna was shivering head-to-toe. "Can we just not? Please?"

Lucy looked at her for the first time in minutes and seemed shocked. And ashamed. "Sorry."

"It's okay. It just freaks me out."

"Of course. Sorry, Lisanna. Do you want to go back to Rose's?"

The way she asked made Lisanna suspicious. "Are you going to come, too?"

Lucy looked towards the ground. "Natsu probably expects me to show up. I texted him."

That was _not_ why she wanted to stay out, she was so transparent. "If you go looking for him, he'll probably be looking for you, too." That was just the way the universe worked. Or at least, that's the way it worked around Lisanna. She did her _very best_ not to think about Lucy laying beneath a wide, black heart hanging and spinning off a tree branch. Like, if she did that, it could really, really happen.

"After I found that camera, the police think that maybe he already is," Lucy said offhandedly.

Lisanna didn't think she knew Lucy well enough to scold her for her dark, prophetic mutterings. She _wanted_ to, though. Lucy didn't understand what it was like to be under a tree with a black heart overtop of her; she couldn't, and she wouldn't until it was happening.

 _Stop. Stop thinking it,_ Lisanna commanded.

The Thrift Store came into view, its lights spilling out into the street. "They're still open." The light banished the dark and Lucy sounded much more like her chipper self. Lisanna was _relieved._ She led the way.

It was a boy working tonight, university age. He smiled at Lisanna and Lucy. "We close in fifteen."

"We'll be fast," Lisanna told him and went on the hunt through racks and racks of second-hand things.

She ignored any cute clothing she passed and found what she was looking for in the very back corner. Men's hockey equipment. Shoulder pads, shin pads, elbow pads and gloves, all medium size. They were large on her, though the helmet and cage were the worst, rocking on her head. The clerk looked at her strangely while a very different Lucy than the one obsessed with murders tittered, " _Are you sure,_ " and Lisanna put on her best cavalier face. _Was_ she sure she wanted to careen down a four-hundred-metre hill at twenty kilometres an hour in a _shopping cart_ that would absolutely crash? Absolutely not. But she _wanted_ to be. She wanted to be the girl that was boisterous and carefree and bold. The kind of girl that wasn't afraid.

The hockey equipment was more expensive than she thought it would all be, and she had to ditch the gloves and the shin pads to make the purchase. She figured she'd be safe enough. It was only a hill, after all, on a dead-end street without houses at the end. At the bottom of which were shrubs and a river that ran fast, boarding the park, though it was shallow.

No big deal.

Together, Lisanna and Lucy, both holding bags full of equipment, exited the store and walked north, side by side. "We'll need a shopping cart," Lisanna decided when they passed by a Walmart. She deked into the parking lot and grabbed one that was left in the cart pavilion. It was a small one; she barely fit in the box, she tried. It would do, though. She didn't want to risk walking all the way up to the store doors to grab a different one and get spotted by the manager or something.

She pushed the cart while Lucy looked around for prying eyes, uncomfortable for the first time that night. Murder and mayhem? She was fine. But buy hockey equipment and steal a cart? That was almost too far. _Almost._

The sun sank below the treeline in a matter of minutes. "Do you think Miss Porlyusica's back now?" Lucy asked.

"Yeah, but I don't think she'll notice we're gone. Most of the girls go upstairs at this point. You always keep to yourself and I'm always reading in our room," Lisanna reasoned. "They'll think we're back."

"And if they check on us?"

Lisanna looked at her reproachfully. "You've lived there for almost two weeks now. Have they _ever_ come up to our room?"

"Erza did once. Or twice."

"Erza's working tonight," Lisanna told her. "Remember?" She'd gotten a job at a restaurant connected to the mall but separate. It was open late, turning into a sports bar after hours.

"Right," Lucy muttered and dropped the hockey equipment she carried into the cart. They walked in silence after that, their running shoes and the creaky cart wheels over the sidewalk the only noise.

Sweat was creeping down Lisanna's spine and pricking at her temples. It was still so hot. When she'd checked the forecast, there was no relief in sight. She tied up her tank top so the white stars on the front were distorted and her belly button was revealed and pulled up her shorts, too. They were stuck to her skin. It'd be better if she wasn't wearing her arm warmers but fashion over practicality.

A small breeze rolled through the street. It wasn't the feel of it on her skin that made her heart cramp, though, that was the feeling of eyes as they passed by a stout apartment building on the opposite side of the road.

Lisanna looked for her watcher and found him. Finally. He leaned against the red brick and smoked, one foot up on the wall, the other pushing him back. He was in a dark blue T-shirt and pair of tight-fitting jeans that rested low on his hips. His boots were dull. He never shone them until they needed to be water-proofed again.

His eyes were much like the detective's, seeing far more than Lisanna thought she could ever hope to. She wondered if there were ghosts there for him to look at; if the spirit of Amanda Ashley was walking beside them or some other dead girl the world focused on for an infinitesimal moment before she was forgotten again, famous only for her tragedy.

He lifted his hand and took the cigarette from his mouth and Lisanna remembered the way he held her in the alley behind the mall. She remembered the way his mouth crushed to hers. She remembered the way she wanted it again.

"What's wrong?" Lucy asked and Lisanna realized that she was lagging behind.

"My shoe's untied," Lisanna fibbed and crouched to fix the knot that didn't need fixing. By the time she was standing again, he was gone and she and Lucy were alone again. They could hear voices in the distance, laughter. Male. Lisanna recognized Natsu's voice, though she hadn't heard it too often. "Come on." She pushed the cart faster, down the road and left at the intersection of Cherry Street. There were streetlights down almost to the very end, and in their halo, Lisanna counted seven people. Four of those were taller and wider than the others, the rest were variously delicate.

Closer, Natsu's head of pink hair glowed in the streetlight. He was saying something tart to one of his friends, but he trailed off when he heard the sound of the cart wheels over pavement. Lisanna waited for Lucy to say hello but Lucy seemed to be momentarily mute so she stepped up.

"Hi, Natsu!"

Natsu squinted against the streetlight, then his face broke into a wide grin. "Hey! You guys made it." If he was perturbed that Lisanna had shown up as well, he didn't let on. "Told you, Happy." His voice was smug and his expression superior when he looked at his blue-haired friend beside him.

Happy muttered something Lisanna couldn't hear and turned towards his date, a girl with hair as pale as Lisanna's own. For a moment her heart skipped a beat until she realized that it was _not_ her sister tracking her down but a girl she'd never seen in Clover before. She was shorter than Lisanna and her mouth looked like it hadn't spent too many days smiling. She would be hard to get to know, Lisanna concluded and wondered why she was there at all. She seemed too serious for this kind of thing.

Natsu met them half-way and took the cart. "You didn't have to bring this, I have one."

"This one's for me," Lisanna said with a wicked grin that, after a moment, Natsu returned full-force.

"You want to go down?"

"I wouldn't have brought all of this hockey equipment otherwise," she said and he laughed. He had a nice one, totally contagious and not at all as lunatic as her boyfriend's.

"Here." One of the others, a guy with dark hair had pulled out a bottle of tequila to pass around while a guy with blonde hair, had lit a joint. The smell tickled Lisanna's nose. He passed it to the girl beside him; she had hair so long, it touched the top of her very round bottom. She took some and passed it on, to another girl with short blonde hair. When it came Lisanna's way, it was more than halfway done. She took some; why not? It made her throat close and her lungs convulse. She coughed until it didn't hurt anymore. Lucy, who was taking Lisanna's hockey equipment out of the Thrift Store bags refused but Natsu took some. He didn't cough. He helped Lucy sort stuff out when he was done and introduced his friends.

Happy's scornful date was Carla; she took neither the tequila nor the weed. The guy with the blonde hair was Sting, his dark-haired friend was Rogue. The two girls they were with were Minerva and Yukino, though Lisanna missed which was which, Lucy was helping her get her helmet on her head.

"Are you okay?" Lisanna whispered.

Lucy met her eyes steadily. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know. You're quiet. Are you mad I took some weed?" Her head wasn't totally foggy but her thoughts were certainly soft on the edges and laughing felt easier when for weeks the sound had been jammed in her chest.

"I just want to think clearly."

"You can't look for him." Lisanna gripped the side of the cart. It seemed doubly small now that she was dressed. How was she supposed to get inside?

Lucy didn't need clarification; they both knew she meant the Black Heart. "I'm counting on not having to."

Natsu came over then, away from Lisanna's competitors—Sting and Happy—stealing Lisanna's reply. "Did you want to push her, Lucy, or do you want me to?"

Lucy stood straight and smiled like she wanted to be there. Flirtatiously, generously. She was a girl compartmentalized, Lisanna was seeing, teaching herself to portray expressions she didn't necessarily mean. "You do it. I'll push you after."

"Alright. Hop in, Lisanna, we're almost ready to go," Natsu said.

Lisanna missed getting into the cart the first time. Natsu grabbed her by the waist and helped her inside the second. She could feel his hands on her even through her hockey equipment and for long after he let her go and guided her cart to the start mark—a willow tree at the very top of the hill. She hoped Lucy would kiss him. She wanted to know what it was like.


	7. Chapter 7

Broken, stony concrete rattled the shopping cart under Lisanna's bottom. Natsu sometimes swung the front to make her laugh. Behind them, Lucy laughed, too, and on occasion let out an errant cheer. She could be someone bubblier, Lisanna saw. Someone carefree. Not only that, she was dying to be that girl. Even if she didn't know it.

Sting's cart was pushed up alongside Lisanna's and Minerva, Lisanna learned, pushed Natsu hard enough he almost fell. She raced ahead then, like the real competition would be getting to the starting point and not rolling down the hill to the bottom.

Natsu squawked and ran after her. Lisanna hit the back of the cart with the sudden jolt of speed. She gripped the sides, her heart already going, her stomach already twisting. Natsu turned sharply and the cart came up on two wheels. Laughter bubbled out of her chest instead of a scream. Natsu slowed to bring her back down on all fours and because of that, they lost the prerace. He sulked like a ten-year-old but boasted and made threats like an adult. Lisanna loved him immediately. She didn't know anyone so unbound by what was expected of him as a new adult.

They came up to the willow, the three of them in a row, and the games became subdued. This was the real competition, and they took it seriously. Lucy took a spot by Lisanna's side and smiled. "Good luck."

"Thanks." Though it would be more dangerous, Lisanna moved to the front of the cart so she could get more speed quicker. Otherwise, she didn't think she'd be able to catch the bigger, heavier boys,

Yukino stood between them and, like a 1950s baby, took an honest to goodness ascot from around her neck. She counted down from five with great animation, lifting her arms at _one_ and waving the fabric like a flag.

Natsu was quick to start, tightening his fingers on the cart handle and bursting forward past Sting and past Happy. People yelled, one of them might have been Lucy. Lisanna held off on looking over her shoulder, she had to watch the road disappearing beneath her trembling cart and the curvature of the hill. It was coming up on her and it was coming up fast.

She felt the moment Natsu let the cart go, he gave her one last giant push and then she was on her own, bouncing and gritting her teeth, hoping as the cart wobbled that she wouldn't tip it over, not yet. There was a hump at the end of the hill, and that was the finish line. She just had to make it there.

Sting came up on her left; Lisanna could see the very front of his cart. He called something to her that she missed, though she got the gist of it, given the goading tone of his voice. She took a page out of Minerva's book and dared to reach across the distance and push him hard. He hit the edge of his cart and kept on going, smacking into the pavement and rolling. Lisanna couldn't even watch it happen, she had to grip the edges of her cart for dear life and pray that as it vibrated and tried to do the same as Sting's, that it'd sort itself out.

Happy came up on her right, too far away for Lisanna to sabotage him. She saw the front of his cart listing badly, though, and imagined him toppling over. He hit a water bottle a second after that and it was all over. His cart capsized and he Supermaned out before his legs could get tangled up.

Lisanna lifted her hands and cheered. Then her cart hit the lifted piece of pavement and she started to fly. She curled in on herself and hit the ground. It was no longer pavement, this stuff spongy and muddy from the river water. Saplings stung her legs and made her regret not buying the shin pads. Her head smacked off the ground hard enough to make her thankful for the helmet.

And then she stopped. She was staring at the night sky. Her breath hit the edge of the helmet and came back on her, too hot. Her ears roared. A second passed. Not long enough, surely. But she tested her legs. She could move them. And her arms. They were fine, too. She waited to see if she felt any other pain. Just the lashes from the saplings. She was okay.

Lisanna sat up and tore off the helmet, and that was when she heard the boots crunch over the rocks on the opposite side of the river. She found them and recognized them immediately, unshined, kind of dirty. He'd followed her here.

He was smoking again. Almost always. Watching her. Beckoning her without ever opening his mouth. She had to go to him. She _had_ to. She always had to.

Lisanna stood and tore off her elbow pads and shoulder pads and then waded through the wide river towards the burning ember. Her feet were soaked, her pants. The water was _cold_ in comparison to the humid night air. Not cold enough to shock her into her senses.

He said, "Hey, kitten," and it felt worth it.

"Why are you here?"

He leaned down so he could kiss her damp shoulder and then her sweaty neck and whispered in her ear, "Isn't that obvious?"

Her heart skipped. "How did you find me?"

"I'll always find you, kitten."

_Always_.

"So there's no sense in hiding."

It didn't seem that way.

He kissed her lips. Lisanna closed her eyes and _felt_ it. Just like she felt the concrete stopper under her the night she ran away. The bruises were almost gone but the memory was most vivid. She started to quiver like she'd quivered when _L. Dreyar_ was taking off her clothes.

"Shh," he told her. "Stop thinking about it."

"I can't, Bickslow."

He kissed her deeper like that would wipe her memory. It did work. It did. Because she wanted it to. She thought of the times they'd spent like this and not the terrible people they'd become one long night in an empty parking lot, mid-summer.

* * *

Happy came up the hill first, then Sting. Lucy waited for Lisanna but when she didn't immediately follow them and there was no movement where her cart had disappeared into the brush, she started down there herself. She was in the bushes before Natsu stopped razzing Happy for turning over his cart and noticed that she was gone. She could hear her name on his lips, muffled by the trees but didn't answer.

Deeper she went, past the trash line, past the sparse underbrush, into the place where the trees got tall and the undergrowth got thick.

"Lisanna?" Her voice was like the croak of a tree branch in a breeze. Too silent, but also startling because aside from the rush of the river and the spongy crunch of leaves left too long in the humidity, she could hear nothing. She couldn't even hear Natsu anymore.

Red-Osier Dogwood spread out in front of her, narrow limbs obscuring her view like cracking glass. She couldn't see the opposite side of the river, and when she stepped into them she couldn't see where she'd come from, either, the parking lot and the hill. "Lisanna?"

Her question got snagged on the leaves and _Lisanna_ was breathed back at her. _LisannaLisannaLisanna._ Her breath was hot pushed back into her face. Suffocating. "Lisanna?" There was no _air_ in here, it was like the trees were grabbing all the moisture and keeping it there, a rainforest, humid, dense. She struggled for another breath and tried to keep going forward. The Dogwood was so thick here. "Lisanna?" And the leaves were damp. She was sticky-wet. It was like hot, clammy hands were grabbing her, tearing at her.

The trees to her left wiggled. Someone or something moved through them. The trees on the right did the same. She moved so she could see through a gap and spied something that didn't really _belong_ in the forest. Something black and limp, hanging from a branch.

Heedless, Lucy lunged towards it, though when she was a few inches closer, she realized it was a drooping Basswood leaf and not a heart at all.

She heard more rustling and turned. She couldn't tell where she was anymore, though, everything was dark and everything looked the same. "Lisanna! Lisanna!"

Lucy listened. A trickle of water. A rustle of leaves. The intake of breath. Her own. Her own blood thundering in her ears. Someone was here. Someone was looking for her. Looking _at_ her. She was scared.

Lucy started pushing through the trees again. She was having an even harder time than before. Grapevines were trying to choke her and the ground was so soft. She didn't want to be there anymore. She took in a deep breath of humid air and was the loudest she'd been yet. "Lisanna?"

"I'm here!" Lisanna's voice seemed to break whatever spell the forest had on her and Lucy could see beyond the vines. Natsu was coming at her from the left and he looked annoyed. "Geez. Why didn't you answer me?"

"I didn't hear you," she said honestly.

"I was yelling at you."

She didn't have an explanation for her single-mindedness. "Sorry."

"It's okay. You just shouldn't wander around down here by yourself." That was as close as a warning about the Black Heart as Natsu would get. "Come on. I saw Lisanna this way." He turned away from her and pushed through the tangle of grapevine. Lucy followed his trail; branches whipped her cheek and her eyes watered.

She came into an opening beside the river and was sprinkled with the icy water Lisanna kicked up as she crossed. Her hair was disarray and her clothing was filthy and dishevelled.

"Why are you in the water?" Lucy asked.

"I had to pee."

Natsu snorted. "You didn't have to cross the river and get soaked."

"I don't mind being wet," Lisanna said. "It's too hot."

It may not have been obvious to him that she was lying, but Lucy had spent her life trying to smooth her facial expressions so she was a girl completely blank and knew all about dropping your eyes to the ground and looking away, about shuffling your feet. She knew all about looking guiltily back over your shoulder. She knew Lisanna was doing something she was ashamed of with someone she was ashamed to be with. Or scared to be with. She was shaking. Lucy hunted the bushes for the source of her disquiet, afraid it was the Black Heart and, selfishly, simultaneously hoping.

There was nothing that she could see.

"You landed okay?" Natsu was asking and Lisanna was nodding and adding something else, some other genuine snippet to make whatever was making her uneasy seem like nothing at all. She gathered up her hockey equipment with Natsu's help and then they started back through the trees. Lucy trailed behind them. This time, the Dogwood seemed thin and wispy. It didn't grab her and it didn't scratch her.

Her breath was short when they topped the hill and the rest of their party came into view. Happy was holding his arm and laying it on thick, and Carla was colder than necessary, telling him that it was a stupid game and that someone was going to get hurt for real. Sting and Minerva were snickering about something and Rogue and Yukino weren't anywhere to be seen.

"Where did they go?" Natsu asked and Happy shrugged. "Rogue!" Silence met Natsu's call. He muttered and started towards the hill again. "This way?"

"Don't interrupt," Sting told him. "He's busy."

"He's supposed to be _racing_."

"Now he's doing something better," Sting said with a laugh that Lucy sort of hated. It was razors on her skin. Natsu muttered more. Sting grabbed his shoulder and turned him back around. "He won't be long."

"Not Rogue," Minerva dug in and Sting gave her a look that said to Lucy that maybe she knew first-hand. And maybe Sting wasn't totally okay with it.

"He gets five minutes," Natsu threatened. "Then I'm dragging him out and we're racing."

Sting waved him off. Natsu came back and dropped down onto the broken curb in front of Lucy. He was in sneakers tonight, they were black and orange of no notable brand. He wore jeans. The cuffs were frayed and there was a rip in the knee; it may have been the style but Lucy didn't think so. The fabric was thin with many washes and very well-loved out of financial necessity, if she had to guess. He was the exact kind of person her father wouldn't approve of if she ever took him home. Which added to his endearing smile when it was turned on her.

"What do you think so far?"

"Of cart racing?"

"Yeah."

"It's violent, and dangerous."

"So it's perfect?" Natsu's interjection pried a laugh from Lucy's throat. The forest seemed far away now.

"It's okay."

"Did you want to go down?"

Lucy said, "I don't race."

"You don't have to," Natsu countered. "We could go down together."

"Together?"

He shrugged, though he looked at the ground too much and at her face not enough. "Why not?"

"You should try, Lucy."

She'd almost forgotten that Lisanna was there, standing just inches away, her thumbs in her sleeves and her hair askew from her helmet. She looked like a wilding, her eyes almost fevered and her lips still red and swollen. She kept chewing on them.

"Come on, even while we're waiting for Rogue?" Natsu suggested.

"But the forest…" She trailed off.

Natsu promised, "I won't let anything happen to you."

Lisanna wiggled her helmet. "You can wear my hockey equipment."

"We won't both fit in the cart," Lucy said.

"Sure we will." Natsu was already standing and taking her hand. His skin was warm and rough and she was both thrilled and horrified by it. It wasn't anything like her father's. It wasn't. And it… scared her. Why that should be the case, she didn't _know_.

"Natsu—"

"Trust me. Here." Natsu started gathering up all of the equipment Lucy would need and dressed her like one dressed a child. She held out her arms and shivered when he put the shoulder padding on her. His hands lingered around her back and her sides, wiggling it down over her chest. She felt like an ODST when he was through, all she needed was the helmet. Natsu set it down over her head. Her hair was bothering her. She tried to swipe it away and realized the grim truth.

"I can't move."

Natsu grinned and moved it for her. He snapped the cage closed again well before she could read too much into his gesture.

Lisanna rolled up beside them with the shopping cart. She'd stopped quivering and now she smiled. "All aboard."

"I still think this is a bad idea," Lucy said. "For the record."

"Noted and striked," Natsu responded and shuffled her over that way. He helped her inside. He was strong, and he never fretted about where to put his hands, he just took her by the hips and lifted her up like it was easy. She almost felt delicate, a strange sensation when she'd spent most of her teen and adult life feeling like a marshmallow.

Natsu said, "Get up close to the front." Lucy shimmied as close as she could get. Her heart was pounding at the base of her throat and her palms were tingling looking at the curve of the hill and the forest beneath. It didn't scare her anymore, the feeling came and left like the tide. She watched Natsu wriggle into his own shoulder pads. They were larger than hers and fit him. Like his jeans, they were ancient.

"Do you play hockey?"

"My brother used to," he said in a way that meant the conversation wasn't _closed,_ necessarily, but it was on a short, dead-end street. Lucy let it lie. Natsu jammed his helmet on his head and gripped the edges of the cart. He got in much more gracefully than Lucy had and settled down behind her, his legs on either side of her body, his chest against her back so close, she could feel him breathe through all of the equipment.

Natsu tapped the edge of the cart. "Forward!"

Lisanna pushed them to the part of the hill where she had to lean back with all her weight to keep the cart from going. "Are you ready?"

Lucy held on for dear life and Natsu held on to her, his arms looped around her middle. "Not even a little bit."

"Let go," Natsu said. Lucy's stomach turned over with nerves worse than before the moment Lisanna's fingers left the cart handle. They were free-rolling. It was slow at first but they rapidly picked up speed. The entire cart rattled and trees whipped past them and all Lucy could see was the hump at the end of the road, where she'd watched Lisanna hit and then launch from. If her father could see her, he would make her ears bleed, telling her how dumb this was. Suddenly, she was glad to be doing something that he'd absolutely disprove of, though it was childish, and the consequences could wind her up in the hospital.

They hit a small bump and Lucy came out of the cart an inch. Natsu's arms wrapped tighter around her, holding her in. An insane bubble of laughter jerked free of her chest. He joined her. They hit another bump in the road and he whooped. _Another_ laugh was taken from her; it tore something on its way out and she felt unexpectedly free. She released her death-grip on the front of the cart and opened her mind to other sensations. Wind whipping past her cheek, making her eyes water; the sticky-hot feeling of the hockey padding against her back, and Natsu's warm body behind it; his hands clenched together under her breasts and his legs pressing against her legs; the smell of goldenrod, the end-of-season plant chasing summer to death.

_All that's real to me_ , she thought with a smile and closed her eyes so she couldn't see where the cart would start to lose control. She could see feel it, though. Natsu firmed up his grip on her and leaned hard to the right so when they hit, they didn't topple end-over-end, but skidded across the ground at a roll.

Lucy's shoulder hit first, and then her hip. They were on pavement for just a second. She kept her head up; it was jostled down again and forced to hit, though this time, she met spongy, muddy ground. They crushed mint plants and hemlocks, great docks and red-osier and by the time they stopped, Lucy couldn't see the parking lot, only the edge of the river three metres away. Not a speck of light was showing, the skies cloudy now.

Natsu was the first to move, taking away the hand that wasn't trapped behind her and tearing off his helmet. His pink hair was plastered to his forehead and his eyes, though wild with joy, were also concerned. "Are you okay?"

Lucy tried moving her arms so she could take off her helmet. Her elbow stung but aside from that, and what she thought was a scrape on her knee, she felt good. Better than good. Fantastic. She sucked in greedy breaths of humid air just as soon as she was free of her helmet. "Let's go again."

Natsu grinned. "You liked it?"

"It was amazing. Did you see how fast we were going? We were _flying_."

"I knew you were a bit of a thrill-seeker."

She made sure to tell him, "It's still insane."

"It wouldn't be fun if it weren't."

"Debatable." She followed that with an earnest, "Thanks for inviting me. I needed some fun." She just didn't know it at the time.

Natsu's grin turned soft. Lucy knew what he was doing well before he leaned into her. Her mind rioted. She didn't want to be kissed. She wanted to be kissed. She didn't know if she _could_ be kissed. Then she remembered Lisanna had proven otherwise.

He leaned in. His thumb swiped across her cheekbone. She was still all tangled up when his lips brushed hers, dry and warm. There was the faint taste of mint gum on his lips, and salt.

He pulled away before she could wonder if he was going to try anything else in this dank and damp forest. He was opening his mouth and saying something, but there was a crack of a stick and movement behind his shoulder and Lucy was no longer looking at him. She was looking at a girl.

She stood in the river behind Natsu's shoulder, nestled between two large boulders that stuck out of the stream by a foot and a half. The water rushed past her knees and soaked the material of her white pouf dress so it clung to her thin frame. Her hair, too, was wet, sticking to her neck and to her angular chin. Even her lashes looked damp around her wide, blue eyes. There were bruises on her throat and a weeping hole in her chest. She seemed to waver, not really of this world and not really gone from it.

"Lucy? Lucy, are you okay?" Natsu adjusted so he was blocking Lucy's view. " _Lucy_?"

Lucy pushed him back and sat up fully, but by the time she'd done that, the girl was gone. Not even the rocks were dampened by her presence. The forest felt hostile again. Eyes were on her. Malevolent. And she knew _he_ was watching her. Without a doubt. Her arms exploded in goosebumps and all the blood rushed to her head.

"Lucy?"

She struggled to her feet. Natsu was there with her, grabbing her arms and stopping her from rushing off. Lucy didn't try to shake him because she was afraid of what she'd do if she was untethered.

More sticks broke. Someone was assuredly walking through the forest and they were getting closer. "There's someone out here." She spun in a circle, trying to watch the woods from every possible direction, looking for movement, looking for hearts, _real_ ones, hanging from trees or sleeping in fallen leaves.

The trees parted to the right and Lucy choked on a scream. Natsu was looking violent, ready for a fight when he stepped forward. Then his shoulders slouched and he laughed. "Don't fucking do that."

Lucy squinted. Rogue's partner was visible before he was, her hair bright. Then Lucy could focus on her taller and broodier counterpart as he slunk out of the forest, covered in mud and blood.

Natsu was much less stuck than Lucy. "What happened to you?"

"He says he can see in the dark, but he can't actually," Yukino said. "He tripped and cut open his arm. He _also_ says he's fine, but I think he needs stitches. And before you ask, no, he won't be racing."

"Awe, Yukino—"

Lucy missed the rest of the exchange, her eyes were on Rogue and she was hunting for something dark.

"Come on, Lucy," Natsu sulked.

"Huh?"

"Let's go back up." He'd grabbed his helmet and hers. Lucy hesitated. She didn't know how to tell him that she wanted to stay there to look for a dead girl. She didn't know how to say she wanted to look for a killer. She moved reluctantly, in front of him because he wouldn't budge until it was so.

Lisanna waited for them at the top of the hill, a smile spreading across her face when she looked between them. "How was it?"

"Fun," she said expressionlessly. "I'm tired now, though. We should go."

"Already?" Natsu asked.

"Yes." Lucy took her helmet from his hands and stuffed it under her arm. "Thanks for having us out."

"Can I walk you home?"

"No," Lucy answered.

"But—"

"We'll be okay," Lisanna assured him.

"Will you text me?" Natsu asked. His friends were snickering behind him; he didn't even acknowledge that they were there.

Lucy nodded, but she wasn't looking at him, she was looking at Rogue again. He was brushing Yukino off and wiping down his arm. She hunted for a gash to no avail.

Lisanna looped her arm through Lucy's and started leading her away. "Bye, Natsu! We had fun," she called much more civilly. "Talk to you soon." Lisanna's smile dulled when she turned to Lucy. "That was rude. What happened?"

Lucy said, "I want to make that Ouija board. Tonight."

"Why the rush?" Lisanna asked.

"Because I'm sure I just saw a dead girl."


	8. Chapter 8

Lisanna was careful to avoid the halos of streetlamps. Lucy didn't mind. They weren't in the light and the streets were eerie but at least they weren't on display. A car passed, and another. Lucy tried to hide behind the curtain of her hair. Lisanna, who didn't have that option with her short, wispy cut, used Lucy's shoulder to block her from immediate view.

One last car pulled up to a stop sign and Lisanna decided that more effort to conceal themselves was needed. She pulled Lucy into an alley where the brick was festooned with tags and street art and the concrete was littered with garbage. It smelled like people in there, like sweat and pee, and way back in the corner, there was a lump that could very well have been a man.

"That's the detective's car," Lisanna explained without prodding.

Sure enough, the unmarked cruiser rolled past so incredibly slow, Lucy was nearly positive they'd been spotted. It disappeared from the alley mouth, though, and didn't return. After a moment, Lisanna took Lucy's hand and pulled her towards the opening again. The cruiser was stopped five hundred metres down the road and the passenger, Fernandez, if Lucy remembered correctly, was leaning out and talking to someone on the sidewalk. She didn't pause to get a look at who it was.

Rose's was a five-minute walk from there; they did it in three and a half, though when the huge manor-like façade loomed up ahead, Lucy found herself dragging her feet. What if Lisanna was wrong and their absence _had_ been noted? Miss Porlyusica may have been busy with Wendy but she was scalpel-sharp. The kind of lady that knew everything that went on in her house.

"All the lights are off," Lisanna murmured. "We're alright."

They _were_ off. Whether or not they were alright remained to be seen.

"This way." Lisanna toed past the scant cars in the driveway—an ancient Prius, a Ranger with more than half of the tailgate rusted to pieces, and, of all things, a brand new Audi that came with one of the ladies whose husband owned half of Clover's upmarket.

It reminded Lucy of her father. She hated it. Miss Porlyusica wouldn't make her liquidate it, though.

The back of the manor was fenced off from the front with a large creaky gate. Instead of opening it and making a ton of noise, Lisanna stood on the box Miss Porlyusica kept all of her garden goods in and swung her legs over the top of the seven-foot fence.

"I can't climb that," Lucy whispered.

"Then I guess you can't get inside," Lisanna whispered back and looked up. Lucy saw what she meant. Teetering from the top of the fence, the second-storey roof was only two feet away. That would be their entry when it was time.

Lucy closed her eyes. "Maybe you can open the door for me?"

"Just come on, Lucy, you can do it," Lisanna urged. She dropped over without waiting for a response. Lucy heard her hit the ground on the other side with a quiet _oof_. There was only a fence between them but Lucy felt suddenly alone and fear was trying to make her anxious. Everything about tonight felt sinister. Especially the laughter coming from the roadway as two teenagers who had somehow skipped curfew, ambled down the street.

She clambered onto the garden supplies and stretched for the top of the fence. She had to use muscles she didn't normally and the wood dug into her belly, and then her legs. When she got on top, she was faced with the grim truth. The first part was the easiest. Now she was stuck up there, teetering and looking down at where she'd land. Grass and bits of gravel would break her fall.

Lisanna took a couple steps back. "Hurry."

"I think I'm actually scared of heights," Lucy confessed.

Lisanna crossed her arms. "This is _not_ the hardest thing you've done all night."

"It feels like it."

"Just close your eyes and jump if you can't watch."

Lucy scowled at her. "Do you know how crazy that sounds?"

"That's how you did it in the cart, isn't it?" Lisanna asked. "I saw you."

She was right. _Besides, you can't stay here all night_. No matter how much she wished Miss Porlyusica would wake up and bring out a ladder. Lucy closed her eyes and pushed forward. She fell for less than a second and gravel bit into her palms and knees. It hurt but not as badly as she figured it might.

Lisanna was right there, hauling her back up without giving her a second to adjust. "Good. The cardboard's over here."

The moon slid out from beneath a cloud and splashed everything in lifeless light. Lucy identified the pile of soggy cardboard and chose an old pizza box, Greek flavoured. She tucked it under her arm and turned back around. Lisanna was just feet away going through more recycling. Newspapers and magazines went under her arm. Still bent over, she looked at Lucy sideways from the corner of her eye.

"Did you really see a dead girl?"

"I think so," Lucy said.

"What happened?"

"I was laying there, and Natsu had just—he kissed me—and I saw this thing over his shoulder. When I looked, she was standing there. She had a hole here," Lucy tapped her chest. "Like those other girls that were killed."

"But you didn't recognize her?"

"I don't think so." She added a bit of uncertainty for the sake of sounding sane but she knew for _sure._ She'd memorized all of the girls the Black Heart had murdered that the media knew of and this one was _not_ one of them. "I think she was the girl the police were looking for tonight."

Lisanna straightened and wiped her hair from her eyes. "Natsu kissed you?"

Lucy pursed her lips. "Aren't you more concerned with the dead girl?"

She shrugged. "My boyfriend said he saw dead people all the time. They never did anything, though. It gets boring after a while."

"I'm not lying," Lucy said, thinking that was the only reason she could be so blasé.

"I don't think he was, either," she said back. "So what was it like?"

"She looked at me with these blank eyes—"

"The kiss," Lisanna clarified.

Lucy was _almost_ annoyed, but it was also refreshing that Lisanna was so nonchalant about this whole thing that it felt manageable. If she was scared, stuttering and asking _are you sure you saw what you thought you saw?_ Lucy thought she would have come unravelled. This way, doing the insane, trying to contact the dead, collecting every tidbit of information she could on murders, felt commonplace.

"Lucy?"

"It was—nice," she landed on at last.

"Nice enough to do again?" Lisanna prodded.

Lucy lifted her shoulder. "I don't know, Lisanna. He's nice but…"

"I get it," Lisanna saved her from having to put her insecurities into words. She straightened up all of her magazines—three in total. "We should be able to get all the letters we need from these. Come on." She shuffled back over to the fence. There was a garbage bin to stand on over here. Lucy held onto it while Lisanna got on top. She was level with Lisanna's dirt-scuffed knees.

"You weren't really going pee on the opposite side of the river, were you?"

"Sure I was. That's what I said, isn't it?"

Lucy looked up at her. Lisanna was courting panic, the same kind she was wearing earlier. "Yeah, but you were lying. Like you're lying now. What were you doing over there? Did you see something?" Like a dead girl, too, or the Black Heart, or one of his calling cards, casually wavering from a branch.

"It wasn't anything like that." Lisanna could have added _mind reader_ to her resume and Lucy would believe her.

"Then what was it like?"

She sighed. "My boyfriend was there."

"He was?"

"I saw him earlier when we passed those low-income apartments. And—he followed us to the river."

"Why were you hiding in the bushes? And why was he sneaking around?"

"Because I promised myself I wasn't going to see him again and he knows it."

"Did he hurt you?" Lucy asked. It was never her go-to question before and she hated that it had become that now.

Lisanna got a dreamy look about her and touched her lips with the tips of her fingers. "No. He kissed me."

She understood Lisanna even less now than she had that morning. "It sounds like you're in love with him."

"Because I am."

"Then why are you avoiding him?"

"Because I'm also scared of him." She took her magazines from Lucy and chucked them on the flat roof. Then she scrabbled onto the fence and, as graceful as any ballerina, she stepped from the top of the fence onto the roof. She waited for Lucy to follow her steps, looking down at her with a complicated expression on her face.

Lucy got onto the garbage bin and then up on the fence. She was sitting on the narrow bits of wood. She needed to be standing. Her palms were sweaty and her heart was a cold knot that got colder still when she _did_ get her feet under her and she was towering over the ground on a piece of wood only an inch wide.

Lisanna eyed Lucy's progress and read her hesitation like she was reading a book. "Sometimes, you love the things that scare you."

The ground wavered in her vision. "That sounds insane."

"It sounds that way, but it doesn't feel that way, does it?" Lisanna asked. "That's why you liked Natsu kissing you. And it's why you loved the cart, though you lied and said you didn't want to do it at first."

"Why would I lie about that?"

Lisanna didn't offer her an answer. Lucy knew it, anyway. She'd lie because she was ashamed. It was the only reason she'd _ever_ lied.

Lucy's toes curled over the edge of the wood. All she could think of was the gasp of breath that came just before the jump, the uncertainty when you freefell, the _rush_ just before the crash. The movement. The movement in between highs and lows. In that time, where she thought of nothing at all.

"What else scares me?"

Lisanna didn't question _why_ she needed to hear it. She just told her. "Sometimes you don't eat enough because you're afraid of being pretty, but you can't go all the way because you're more afraid of disappearing."

It was shocking how right she was. "What else?"

Lisanna observed a moment of silence. "You're afraid of death. And you're obsessed with it. It's why you love the idea of hunting this killer."

Lucy looked up. The moon had made a halo of Lisanna's hair but she looked like no angel. She wasn't _cold,_ exactly, but she wasn't her usual bubbly self. This was the Lisanna that was left when fear stripped away her layers. When she was tired or bored of pretending.

"Do you think I'm crazy?"

"I think I'm standing on a roof with you, about to make an Ouija board so we can contact a girl we don't even know is dead," Lisanna said. "So what does it matter what I think?"

Her deadpan confessional jarred a laugh from Lucy's throat. She reached for Lisanna and Lisanna helped her onto the roof. It was like stepping into the real world. She wasn't on the ledge so she could think rationally, and rational Lucy had to be quiet, or Miss Porlyusica would hear them.

Lisanna led the way. Her shoes sunk into the roof's gravel and though it was a gentle sound, Lucy cringed each time. "What happens if we're caught? Would Miss Porlyusica give up our spot?"

Lisanna raised her brows and pushed her finger against her still-swollen lips as they passed by their matron's window. Lucy bit her cheek so hard, it hurt. She was having fun, though. She couldn't deny it. She hated that she'd become such a risk taker.

Their window was still open. Lisanna went in first and took everything from Lucy. Lucy followed her in after. It smelled like perfume and sweat in there, and floor cleaner. One of the girls had mopped earlier that day.

Lucy put the screen back in the window just as soon as she could and Lisanna turned on one of their lamps. The room looked just as they'd left it. She went to the dresser by her bed and took out a pair of scissors and some crazy glue.

"Isn't that a bit much?" Lucy asked.

"It's all I have."

It would have to do.

She sat down on the floor in front of Lisanna's bed and got to work cutting up the pizza box. Lisanna waited for her to return the scissors then started cutting out letters. Lucy hunted for the ones she didn't have yet, going in alphabetical order so they didn't miss anything.

"How does it get set up?"

"Yes goes in the left corner, no in the right. And then the alphabet beneath it. Then we need numbers. Zero to nine."

Lucy found the written number three. "Does it matter if it's spelled?"

"I don't think so."

She set it aside and found more. Number seven had to be a page number, small and taken from the bottom, the rest were variously sized and coloured. The letters were even more rag-tag. Especially after they were pasted. Lucy's fingers weren't as steady as she'd like them to be when she thought occasionally about what they were really doing.

It probably wouldn't work, but on the off chance it _did…_

_We could talk to the girl I saw._ She could tell them who killed her. Where she died. How to find her body again. She could give them ways to hunt down her killer and bring him to justice.

She could give them control.

Lucy pasted the final letter, Z, and completed the ugliest Ouija board she'd ever seen.

"You're shaking," Lisanna observed.

"I'm nervous."

Lisanna was as steady as a barge. "I think we should light candles."

"Do you think that makes a difference?"

Lisanna shrugged and got tea lights from her drawer and started setting them ablaze with a black Bic lighter. "It's what people do in movies."

She got three going and set them between the _yes_ and the _no_ , then turned off the lamp. Flames made ghosts of shadows on the floor. Lucy looked for the dead girl in the darkest parts but could see nothing. "Now what?"

"Now we need a pointer," Lisanna observed and got a glass that had until very recently been filled with water. She upended it and dried out the remaining drops with the hem of her T-shirt. "We'll put both of our hands on the glass, four fingers each." She held up her index and middle finger on both hands. "Then we'll ask questions. If the ghost is here, it'll answer us by moving the glass over the letters. We'll have to write it down." She snagged a piece of paper and a pen off her dresser, too, and put them down beside her. "Got it?"

"I think so," Lucy said. It was pretty straight-forward. "What do we ask first?"

Lisanna sat up straight and put her fingers on the glass. She closed her eyes, or appeared to at least. She knew when Lucy wasn't participating and cracked an eyelid to give her a sideways glance. Lucy got her shaking hands on the glass and mimicked Lisanna's stance. With her eyes closed, she could almost hear the river and see the girl again. Tangled brunette hair and unseeing eyes. Gaping chest.

"Is there a spirit with us?" Lisanna asked in a teasing voice.

"Don't joke." Everything would fall apart if she did.

"Is there anyone listening?" The second time Lisanna spoke, she sounded soberer. "Anyone? We're trying to contact you on the other side."

The glass moved a millimetre. Lisanna's eyes popped open; Lucy's were already there. "That was me," she confessed. "It's hard to sit still."

Lisanna rolled her eyes. "Concentrate."

"But when I do, I move the glass."

"So don't do it _too_ hard." Lucy made her face blank and unimpressed. Lisanna shrugged. "I don't make the rules."

Lucy sat back again and tried to concentrate, but not _too_ much. A breeze, not any cooler than mid-morning had been wafted in through the open window and moved the candle flames a little. It wasn't very mystic but Lucy felt like it _could_ be. If she wanted it to be.

"Is there anyone listening to us?" Lucy asked and this time, it felt different. The question hung in the air for someone to grab up and answer if they cared to. "Hello?" The glass _hummed_ under her hand. She asked again, "Is there someone here?"

Paper crinkled as the glass began to move. Lucy's eyes popped open. She watched the glass slide over uneven and mismatched letters to the word _yes._ Her heart skipped a beat. Or ten. "Are you the girl from the river?"

The glass wobbled around some, then came back to _yes._ Adrenaline fueled Lucy's feral smile. "Were you killed? By the Black Heart killer?"

The glass remained where it was.

"Hello?" Lucy asked.

Another gusty breeze pushed its way in through the window and this time, the candle closest to it sputtered and hissed. Lisanna took her fingers away from the glass and protected it so it couldn't go out. Something out in the street broke. Glass, Lucy thought, and a lot of it. She, too, released the glass. The wind abruptly stopped and the glass stopped falling.

"What was that?" She got closer to the window and tried to see past the streetlamp out front. There was broken glass all over the street, glittering like diamond dust. A dog barked in the distance. A square of light fell out of Rose Place and Miss Porlyusica came tottering out, a blue nightgown clutched to her throat with one hand, an honest to goodness gun clenched in the other.

Lucy held her breath, waiting as the old matron crossed the driveway in fluffy blue slippers and examined the damage. Her swear fell flat in the hot night air, annoyed and disgruntled but not afraid. At least, not outwardly.

"What's going on?" Lisanna filled the spot beside her.

"I think someone broke into one of the cars across the street."

"Or—"

"It wasn't the ghost," Lucy said with finality.

"How do you know?"

"Because you were moving the glass."

"Only at first." Lisanna pressed her hand to her heart, crushing Lucy's hope and also somehow bolstering it. "I swear."

The prospect of actually _speaking_ to a ghost made her giddy with fear. A ghost that had been so close to the Black Heart…

Miss Porlyusica all but slammed the door. Lucy could actually hear the chain lock sliding into place. Someone slunk out of the shadows across the street. A man, judging by the way he filled out his sweater. She couldn't see past the shadow cast by his hood but when he lifted his gaze, Lucy _knew_ his eyes were on her.

She stared after him even when she could see him no more. Minutes. Lisanna let her stay there, uninterrupting.

Then the street was awash in the white glow of headlights and shattered the stillness. The car pulled up next to the driveway and parked. Lucy spotted the glow of blonde hair. Detective Dreyar. He walked the length of the street, then came back and shined his light on the car with the broken window. Lucy couldn't see his face but his flashlight swept back and forth in an annoyed manner. He came up the driveway then and rapped quietly on the door. Miss Porlyusica answered and they talked.

"What do you think they're saying?" Lucy mused.

"He's probably telling her that it's likely unrelated to any of the girls in here, but to keep the doors locked," Lisanna answered confidently. "Miss Porlyusica's probably saying she _always_ keeps them locked. Come sit."

"Then I won't hear."

"You can't hear anyway and you likely won't, either. He knows you're watching him."

Lucy puffed out her cheeks and strained _more._ Nothing. And then Dreyar was moseying down the driveway again. He lifted his hand in a wave; Lucy thought it was at her.

Someone climbed the stairs and paused by their room. "It's past bedtime, ladies."

Miss Porlyusica.

"Sorry, Miss Porlyusica," Lisanna whispered.

The matron huffed and moved on.

Lucy closed the drapes and Lisanna blew out the candles. She didn't get off the floor, though, so Lucy joined her, hip to hip. She didn't think she could sleep. Not yet. "Can we try again tomorrow night?"

"We'll keep trying until we actually reach her," Lisanna promised.

Lucy smiled, grateful. "Thanks."

They were quiet for a few minutes. Lucy could hear Dreyar next door talking to the neighbour but the specifics of his conversation were muted until the neighbour swore. Lucy heard _third time_ , and some curses about the women's shelter next door that got silenced rather quickly.

"Do you want to know something I think about all the time?" Lisanna murmured.

"Sure," Lucy said, finally ready for distraction.

"Remember, when you were afraid to kiss Natsu because you thought you couldn't kiss _anyone_?"

"Yeah," Lucy responded.

"I'm afraid I won't like kissing anyone other than Bickslow. Ever."

"Bickslow? Is that your boyfriend's name?"

"Yeah."

"Is it nice, kissing him?"

"Remember how you felt when you were racing down the hill?" Lisanna asked.

How could she forget the knots in her stomach?

"It's like that. Every time."

That sounded wonderful and horrible.

"What was Natsu like?" Lisanna wondered.

"Safer than that, I think," Lucy whispered.

"But there was still an edge?"

An edge? Sure. "But no gorge at the bottom."

Lisanna turned to her and her eyes were like shadow spots, her lips dark and swollen and damp. "Show me?"

Here was the gorge.

Lucy leaned across the cuttings from their Ouija board and kissed her, mouth closed, and then when Lisanna gathered Lucy's lip between her teeth and pinched, mouth open. She'd never kissed another girl like this and had to wonder why. It was thrilling.

Lisanna sidled closer and pushed against her, holding her by the shoulder. Lucy's head was spinning so badly, she didn't hear the feet on the floor outside the door, and she didn't hear her doorknob turning. She didn't even know they had an audience until the light from a phone screen lit up the room and they were caught.

Lisanna sucked in a gasp and scrabbled back and Lucy looked up, struggling to see past the phone's brightness.

"I don't know where you two went but curfew is eight unless you have an appointment or you're working." Erza's strict voice was easily identified.

Lisanna recovered. "Does Miss Porlyusica know?"

"Not that I'm aware of. But if you do it again, I _will_ tell her."

The screen went dark. Lucy still couldn't see Erza's face, light blind. She felt the air _whoosh_ around the room when she closed the door. Bits of cut paper slid under the bed. Lisanna snagged it out and replaced it with the Ouija board. She was acting like nothing had happened between them. Which was perhaps worse, Lucy thought, than acknowledging that anything had happened at all.

"We'll try again tomorrow night," Lisanna whispered. She stood and yanked back the blankets on her bed. Lucy listened to her toes rub in her sheets as she got comfortable, wondering which part of tonight she wanted to revisit.


	9. Chapter 9

A thunderstorm broke the humidity Sunday morning. It was so strong that it rattled the windows and shook the floors. Lisanna slept peacefully through it all, her arms spread wide across the bed, hair across her cheek and stuck to her slightly parted lips. _Lips I kissed_ , Lucy remembered. Twice. Though the second time hadn't been anything at all like the first. Piquant and on the very edge of being desperate.

Low, low in her belly twanged when she imagined doing it again. And imagined a place where they would stop. Because there was always a destination when a kiss was involved.

Thunder shook the thoughts out of her head and a fat drop of rain hitting the window doted on her a grim realization: everything was about to get soaked. _Everything_. Including any evidence the Black Heart left in the park yesterday.

_So what will you do_?

She was already rising. She didn't tiptoe consciously; it was a learned habit she'd picked up in avoiding her father in the mornings. In the bathroom, she did a rushed version of her morning routine, deciding to put her hair up in a ponytail rather than brush it. She dressed in her skinny jeans and tank and didn't wonder if she looked pudgy or too indecent when she looked at herself in the mirror. That came after she'd walked out and by then, Lucy didn't want to go back in and check. She counted that as a win.

The downstairs floor was vacant. It was still early and the thunderstorm was keeping people abed. She had no raingear yet but when Lucy opened the closet, she found a pair of daisy-patterned galoshes and a red raincoat that shone like a candied apple in the dull early morning light. The shoes fit her well. The raincoat was a bit snug around her bust. She squished everything in and did up the buttons and snuck out the front door before anyone could notice.

Normally, daylight would take away any fear nighttime cultivated, but with the thunderstorm threatening to flatten this section of Clover, the skies were so dark, the streetlamps were on and she was adrenalized in the same way she'd been last night. Looking for eyes but never finding them.

She had to pull up her hood a block in, the first wave of rain crashing into her so hard, she felt like she was getting pelted with hail. The dark cloud passed and took with it the sudden burst of rain. There was more, fast approaching, but Lucy took the reprieve where she could.

She passed by Henry's and couldn't help but peek in. The Open sign was still off but Natsu _was_ working today. He was behind the counter filling out some kind of request form if she had to guess. He looked up and studied her, but Lucy didn't think he could see into her hood to identify her. He turned back to his sheet before she was out of view.

Another cloud dropped water on her. She started running, afraid that she'd get to the park just in time to find a soggy heart shredded in a tree.

She took the street she'd met Natsu on the night before. One of them had dumped the carts in the trees. They were hidden mostly from view now, when the trees were still full of their leaves, but come the fall and into the winter, they'd stick out, modernism and wildness clashing together badly.

There were cigarette butts on the ground at the very top of the hill, and the distributor was sitting on the curb. Lucy recognized him immediately, his tattooed face and blue hair were telltale. This was the man she'd asked for directions to the thrift store days ago.

He sat in the rain without a care, another cigarette in his mouth, and watched her. The corners of his mouth were lifted in a wry smile that she wasn't sure was entirely friendly. Then he looked beyond her and his grin got bigger. Lucy whirled around, positive she'd see someone next to her, but there was nothing, just a white and yellow daisy hairclip, soused on the ground.

When she turned back, the man had stood. "The storm is about to get bad."

Lucy wasn't entirely sure he was talking to her, his back was to her and he had started to walk away. She waited until he rounded the corner and disappeared from view, but when she tried to go forward, she hesitated. She was again looking at that hairclip. It was out of place there. It could have been Lisanna's or Yukino's or Minerva's, but she didn't _think_ so. It didn't feel right.

She picked it out of a river of rainwater rushing to the bottom of the hill and brushed the sand off its once-white petals. She put it in her pocket and was able to move again.

Wind had blown even _more_ garbage down here now. She stepped over election signs and pop bottles and crushed some plastic, half-rotten grocery bags to get to the pathway into the forest at the edge of the park. It was even muckier now than before. She regularly sank in a couple of inches and could never stop for long otherwise, she left her boot in a hole and would have to stop to work it out.

The shrubs and trees thinned and the river came into view. It was already running dirty, brown water filled with human detritus like cigarette butts and straws, sloshing up over the rocks that had been plenty visible last night. Lucy spotted the ones she'd seen the dead girl between but they just looked like regular rocks.

She hunted the shoreline for any clues. Hearts. She was looking for hearts. The trees here had been assaulted by the rain and the rising water. She saw plenty of bags and strings of fabric and other garbage in the tree limbs but no black construction paper to indicate the resting place of the killer's latest victim.

_The other side of the river,_ Lucy thought. _You need to get over there._

What would she do if she actually _did_ find a body? She'd never seen a dead girl before. Not a _real_ one, free of any covering sheet to keep the public's eye from their skin, free from the sheen of unreality, free of the uncertainty that came when you _thought_ you'd seen a ghost.

_It'll be just like the time you found that kitten on the side of the road._ Hit by a car, in near perfect shape except for the little bit of blood that came from its mouth. The girl would have blood on her chest, though, and bruises around her throat. And wet hair that clung to skin as pale and as dead-looking as maggots. That off-yellow white.

Lucy picked her way over the river, using the stones that were still sticking out to try to keep her feet dry. She wasn't totally successful, on her third step onto a rounded, narrow rock, her foot slipped off and she went down, banging her knee. She was more concerned with the rush of water that came into her boot, though. It was so cold, it distracted from the pain. _Like mountain water._ You'd never know they'd been in the middle of a heatwave just twelve hours before.

Lucy extracted herself from the water and rushed the rest of the way across. The other bank was less muddy and gravellier and the hang of trees kept her somewhat dry from the rain that had chosen that moment to fall consistently. Lightning flashed across the sky, one, two bursts. Thunder _boomed_ almost immediately after, scaring her so badly, she thought about running.

_Breathe._ And focus. She was _looking_ for something. First, though, she emptied out her boots so they no longer squelched. Her toes were so cold. And her hands now, too. Lucy retreated into her stolen coat as much as she could and scanned the canopy. Nothing. The shoreline. More nothing, and she feared that maybe the water had risen so much, it'd washed away any evidence.

"If you're here, I need to know where to find you." She felt silly speaking to ghosts but at least there wasn't anyone there to hear her. "Will you show me?"

There was no obvious answer but the wind howled and something red and shiny caught her eye, in amongst the tangle of dog-strangling vine and forget-me-nots. She crouched. Her face was reflected back to her in the gleam of a small shiny heart, the kind that came in confetti and would sit on tables at weddings. Lucy picked it up and pinched it between her fingers. She had no premonition in doing that and didn't see any ghosts to lead her. She wasn't without hope, though. It was a sign. She was sure of it.

She hunted for more. And found another stuck in a muddy boot print. Lucy left that one where it was and tried to find another. She was so far away from the river now, she couldn't hear it burbling and burping, only the patter of rainwater on the leaves above her head and the crash of thunder.

The forest opened up. The parkland was on the other side and it was deserted. She felt wrong stepping out of the forest and into the open but knew it was necessary to get a better view.

The grass that had been yellow and dying yesterday looked livelier today, not quite green but not quite dead. It, too, was soggy underfoot, puddles forming in the small divots. She splashed through them and was rewarded by another confetti heart coming face-up in the water. She found the source caved in on the grass by the treeline. Someone had a piñata and it had made its way there. The only thing that was left inside was the confetti that occasionally got picked up by a burst of wind and thrown around the grass. Disappointment gripped her but then she looked up.

A black heart dangled above it, on a black ribbon tied carefully with a bow. The edges drooped like the petals of a wilted flower but the construction paper had yet to pill and ruin. It hadn't been there for very long. She touched the very edge of the heart and sent it twirling. There was a fancy gold L in its centre. And this one, unlike the others, could be opened.

_It's for you,_ she knew without a doubt.

Her fingers quivered when she grabbed the edges and split it apart. Jagged letters greeted her.

_Do you like what you see when you watch me?_

Her heart pitter-pattered. He'd seen her. He knew she was looking for him. Without a doubt.

"You're sick," Lucy said aloud. "And you won't get away with what you're doing."

She received only silence in answer. If he _was_ still there and watching her, he didn't want to make his move just yet. She felt untouchable with that knowledge floating in her mind, suddenly not scared. Today would _not_ be the day the Black Heart tried to kill her. He liked his games.

_Or maybe you don't interest him at all?_ Or hadn't, before. But now he knew she was watching him and had called her out on it. So what did that mean going forward?

Lucy pulled on the tag end of his bow and the knot came undone. She grabbed the heart before it could flutter down into the grass and ruin more. This would go in her book, another clue. Each he left brought her closer to him.

It went in the pocket with the hairclip. She turned away but stalled. There was a figure coming out of the trail on the north side of the park. He was in black, hood up, and walked with purpose towards her, coming off the paved path and onto the grass. Suddenly, she wasn't so confident. Lucy looked left and right; there was no one else in the park. And she had nothing to defend herself with. This was not the meeting she'd envisioned. She wasn't prepared.

She chose a direction and walked with huge steps. He matched her pace. She started to run. Her hood fell back and she could hear more. The rain falling, the thunder, the trees whipping against each other, her name on the wind multiple times, each louder than the last, and the voice did not immediately instil fear.

She paused and looked back. The man was still coming towards her but now his hood, too, had fallen back and she could see his face. Natsu's cheeks were streaked with rainwater and he looked concerned. "Wait!"

She slowed to a stop so he could catch up. "Why are you out here? I thought I saw you at work?"

Natsu halted by her side. His chest rose and fell in short bursts. "The boss called and said they weren't opening. The subway's flooded and more rain's on the way. What are you doing out here?"

It sounded crazy, telling him she was looking for a dead girl, and a killer but running away from both. "I couldn't sleep."

"The curfew isn't lifted yet," Natsu told her. "Eight PM to eight-thirty AM. You shouldn't be here."

"Then what are _you_ doing here?" Lucy raised her brow.

"It's a shortcut I use to get to work. I didn't want to be in the rain longer than I had to." Natsu adjusted his hood and then Lucy's with a confidence that was as easy as it was overwhelming. Lucy felt the heat of his hands long after they'd left the vicinity of her cheeks. "Were you on your way home?"

"I don't know what I was doing," she said honestly.

"Well, did you have anything to do today?"

Contact the dead again, maybe kiss Lisanna again. "Nothing while the sun's still up." Both seemed like nighttime endeavours.

Natsu grinned. "Did you want to come back to my place? I have hot chocolate and make the best chocolate chip pancakes you'll ever eat."

"It's early. Happy's probably still sleeping and I don't want—"

"Happy stayed at Carla's last night," Natsu interjected and took her hand. "Come on."

She couldn't quite say no.

Their footsteps left indents in the grass. Natsu was in running shoes; his feet must have been soaked. "So why couldn't you sleep?"

"I just had a lot of stuff on my mind, I guess." Lisanna's lips and Natsu's kiss and a black heart for a girl yet missed.

It was like nothing ever intimidated Natsu, he was a blunt hammer asking, "Should I not have kissed you last night?"

Heat crawled up Lucy's neck despite the storm thrashing around them. "Um…"

Natsu slowed and faced her directly. They were at the edge of the park now, the piñata was barely visible, a ravaged mess of white and red and blue papier _-_ mâché, its hearts scattered far and wide. Hopefully, they wouldn't lead other girls astray. "I won't be mad if you say no. It's okay."

He made her smile even when he was trying to be sincere. She heard herself say, "I liked it," because Lisanna was right. Sometimes, you loved the things that scared you.

Natsu showed her his teeth in a wide smile and started walking again. "My brother's girlfriend gave me this fancy hot chocolate for Christmas last year. You have to boil the milk first. I told her I probably wouldn't ever use it but she wouldn't take it back. Now I don't have to embarrass myself."

"Why wouldn't you use it?"

"Happy likes to buy the instant stuff," Natsu said. "It's easier."

Lucy stepped off the grass and onto the sidewalk. "How come you're walking today? Where's your car?"

"In the shop," he explained. "It needed some work."

"Oh."

"Work's not too far, though, so I don't mind walking."

"Are you going to be paid for today?"

He shrugged carelessly; he was the type of person that never sweated about anything. "Half day, probably." They crossed the street and Natsu's building came into view. His hold on her hand tightened up. "Can you run?"

In galoshes? Wet ones at that? She wanted to, though. There was a build up of frenetic energy in her chest and it had to go somewhere. She didn't wait for him. Natsu squawked and chased after her, laughing but hopelessly behind, and for a moment, she didn't feel the oppressive weight of the Black Heart on her and she wasn't living in the past.

Lucy raced across the road on a red hand signal because, sometimes, you loved the things that scared you, and Natsu followed. A horn blared. Lucy stopped in her tracks to watch Natsu hop and use the hood of a black car to propel him forward so he didn't get crushed. He barreled into Lucy and caught her by the shoulders. They both staggered.

The driver had stopped to stare. Lucy didn't have the same sense of premonition that Lisanna did, but she knew what he was thinking. A girl getting chased through the streets, risking red lights. She smoothed the panic from her face so no one called the cops on Natsu.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine." Natsu was breathing heavily and grinning, blissfully unaware of their audience. Lucy took his hand again and walked more calmly to his apartment. He used a key to open the front door and cold, air-conditioned air wrapped around them. Lucy shivered. She was soaked. The raincoat had not held up to the torrent.

"I'll get you a towel," Natsu offered on the second floor. "And a sweater. I can put your stuff in the dryer."

"Thanks." She, too, wanted to crawl into the dryer.

Natsu opened his door and ushered her inside. The apartment was just as she remembered it. A bit disorganized, gently dirty. The floor could be swept and the counter wiped down but the ceiling wasn't sagging with cobwebs and there was nothing sticky underfoot.

"Take your coat off and hang it up. I'll get you some stuff." Natsu didn't wait for Lucy to follow his instructions. He disappeared deeper into the apartment and she stripped off her coat. She had to peek in the pocket to make sure her heart was still there. It looked criminal against the raincoat's white lining.

Natsu banged around in the other room and she closed the pocket up completely and hung up her coat on the rack on the back of the door.

Her clothing was clinging to her. She pulled at it fruitlessly. It would always come right back. She could see the outline of the cups of her bra and her nipples pressing into the fabric and even the outline of her bellybutton. She didn't have the luxury of rushing as she did that morning, she was just painfully aware of her body and painfully aware of not _hating_ the idea of Natsu looking at her. Her socks peeled off her feet like saran wrap and slapped wetly against her borrowed boots. She sent a silent apology to their rightful owner. She'd dry them.

Natsu returned. He'd traded his jeans for a pair of sweatpants that sat low on his hips, and his jacket and T-shirt were replaced by a light sweater. His hair was still wet, though it looked like he'd run a towel through it. He looked her over but never lingered inappropriately as he held out a small pile of clothes for her. She took them gratefully.

"I'll put your stuff in the dryer while you get changed," Natsu explained. "Then we'll make some breakfast and drink that hot chocolate."

"Sure."

Natsu waited outside the washroom while Lucy peeled her clothes off and dropped them to the floor. When she was down to her undergarments, she sent the clothing out, passing them through the half-cracked door. Natsu didn't try to barge in on her as other men might have. Like her father _would_ have. He took the clothing without comment and did as he promised he was going to. She heard the door closing behind him.

His clothing smelled faintly like cologne and laundry detergent. Which was to say they smelled good. Sort of like the forest, if Lucy had to name it. She thought of Lisanna, who smelled like daisies sometimes when she rolled on a stick of perfume. She liked that, too.

She wriggled the sweatpants over her hips. They almost didn't make it but she had to tie them up around her waist. His shirt was baggy on her, long-sleeved and stenciled with the Mad Hatter asking, _Am I the mad one? Or are you_? How fitting, when she felt like she was going more than a little bit crazy.

She took her hair out of its ponytail so it could dry and came out into the apartment again. Natsu still wasn't back. She went to the window to occupy herself while she waited. The storm was still raging beyond the curtain. Water fell from the sky in pulsing sheets so thick sometimes, they were opaque. In the spaces between the bursts, she spied the area Natsu's apartment overlooked.

The park looked different from on high. Full of thickets where a person could hide, and trails and open patches of grass. It was no longer empty. Lucy counted four people. A woman walking a very large and very miserable looking dog. Two men in slickers. Detectives, she'd bet. And one man that stood at the edge where she'd been with Natsu not moments ago.

He seemed to stare up into the window, straight at her. She tried to memorize his face but he was so far away and his hood was up, the only thing she could make out was the breadth of his shoulders. He was solidly built, though he wasn't large by any stretch of the imagination. The kind of man a woman wouldn't find intimidating if he smiled at her and asked her to help him with something.

_Even in the middle of the night_?

She had no idea if that's when all the murders took place, but murder _seemed_ like a nighttime enterprise.

The door opened and Natsu re-entered. "Everything should be dry in about forty-five minutes. And I ran into the old lady that lives down the hallway. She gave me some strawberries to put on our pancakes, isn't that nice? That came after a lecture to feed you first, not do it like they do in the movies. Whatever the hell that means." He was right behind her. "What are we looking at?"

Lucy broke eye contact with the man below and faced him. He was so close; she could feel the heat coming off his body; she shivered again involuntarily. "The park."

"I haven't seen it for weeks," Natsu admitted. "Not from up here. It freaks Happy out so he always keeps the drapes closed."

Lucy looked back over her shoulder. The man was gone if he'd ever been there at all. It took considerable effort, but she, too, flicked the drapes closed.

"I didn't mean you had to close them. Like I said, Happy's with Carla and he's not going to be back anytime soon."

"I didn't want to look at the park anymore." Or to be saddled with the temptation to. Otherwise, she'd spend her entire day standing at that window, breathing in the sudden chill and looking for killers in the shadows of trees.

"Alright." He retreated from her and returned to the small kitchen counter where Lucy spied the strawberries he'd mentioned. They were large and red and ripe, and nearly sweet-rot fragrant. He set them on a green cutting board and started chopping. "Do you still think about that camera?" He asked casually, but his shoulders were stiff.

"The camera isn't what mattered, it was the pictures," Lucy said. "And I haven't stopped thinking about them."

He breathed out. "Me, neither. I probably looked at that guy a hundred times just leaving my apartment, you know? It's weird."

He was right. He may even live in this building. Lucy got chills again, and a twisted little thrill. No matter what she did, she was always pulled execrably closer to the Black Heart. Like they were made for each other.

_Do you like what you see when you watch me?_

"You're safe here, though. I promise," he added when he thought about what he said. "I wouldn't let anything happen to you." He said some other things that washed over her. And then, "Are you okay?"

Lucy released the breath she was holding and loosened her clenched fists. Her palms hurt, indented with her nails. "Yes."

Natsu set down his knife and faced her more completely. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

But Lucy was glad he did. He pushed her back to that gorge Lisanna spoke of and she liked the way the edge looked. And she liked the way it felt, too. Lisanna had peeled back her layers and taken a peek at the real Lucy and Lucy couldn't, for the life of her, cover up the insanity again.

When Natsu picked up his knife again and started cutting up the strawberries, she spoke out into the silence. "Can I try one?"

It was jagged moving past the awkward moment, but Natsu picked up a strawberry and held it out for her. Lucy felt possessed, leaning in and taking it right from his fingers. When she pulled back, he was looking at her like he had last night, when she was beneath him and there was nothing but the talking river and the wind through the trees. He didn't move in, though, restrained and proper after he pushed her boundaries last time.

"Is it good?"

She kissed the flavour into his mouth slowly and carefully. He set down his knife and the strawberry and kissed her more properly, the fingers on her cheeks smelling like strawberries and the warming stove creeping heat up her back because she was against it and he was pushing into her. Nipping her lip and holding her cheek and then her waist.

Lucy again imagined taking her clothes off for him. She'd leave them on his kitchen floor and turn around. The heat from the stove would caress her throat and it'd be another step closer to the gorge she was so fascinated with. His hands would mark her in different ways than the last lover she'd taken. He would be different with her. Not sickly gentle; that's not what she thought she needed. A total separation from the memory of her father. She would ask Natsu to hold her tight and move quickly. She would ask him to make it so she had difficulty breathing, he was moving so fast.

Natsu's hands moved under the hem of her shirt all on their own and his fingers traced the edge of her pants. Her heart felt like it could grow wings and fly out of her chest, it was beating so fast. She could feel how much he enjoyed their current predicament. And the best part? It didn't repulse her. Nothing in his movements said to her that he was going to push it any further, though, not unless she asked. Lucy didn't know if she was brave enough.

She let his mouth go and leaned back. Natsu rubbed some moisture off his bottom lip. "It was a good strawberry." Lucy laughed. He grinned back at her and returned to his cutting board.

* * *

Lisanna opened her eyes groggily. Lucy's bed was empty. It was as black as pitch outside, though her cell phone said it was eight forty in the morning. And she had a missed call from an unknown number. She bet it was Mira.

She set her phone down again, on top of her book this time, and noticed her window had fogged. It was dissipating quickly, though in its hazy glow were jagged letters that said simply, _Meet me tonight._ She stood and hunted outside. She saw his figure retreating under a streetlight.

He was right. He would always find her because he'd never stop looking.


	10. Chapter 10

There was no end to the storm. The sky had only grown duller and dirtier as the day slipped into the evening. The grumbles of thunder came in waves. Each time one landed and Lucy was brought back from the world alone she'd created on Natsu's couch, she was reminded that her lips were bruised and her body was buzzing and the Black Heart's note was burning a hole in her own heart.

She couldn't stay there forever.

"I should get going." She'd said so twice before; Natsu had distracted her both times, once with a movie and once with his mouth.

He checked his Dollarstore watch. "Happy's going to be home soon, too. Let me get your clothes."

He rose and disappeared out into the hallway. Lucy took the opportunity to do what she hadn't been able to since she closed the drapes. Peek out into the park. It was abandoned now. Anyone brave enough to go through the storm had done so earlier in the day when it was a little bit lighter. Now that the sun was setting, darkness settled like a death shroud and there was nothing. Absolutely nothing beyond the veil.

Lucy felt Natsu come up behind her. He didn't touch her but she felt him wanting to. She waited for repulsion. _Something_ settled in her gut, some sticky feeling she couldn't put a name to. It wasn't _bad,_ though.

Natsu asked. "Why do you like the park so much?"

"Sometimes, you love the things that scare you." He was silent. Lucy asked, "Does that sound nuts?"

"No," he said eventually. "No, not nuts."

She faced him. He held her shirt and her jeans and his expression was complicated. She asked, "What scares you?"

He tried a smile. "Nothing much." He was a liar. And a good one, Lucy thought. Or at least, he was good at moulding that particular lie. He'd practiced it a lot. Maybe even in the mirror, like she'd practiced her facial expressions.

Natsu held out her clothes for her. "Here."

Lucy took them. A braver version of her would take her borrowed shirt off there. She'd drape it on the couch and bring him into her. She'd kiss him, and he'd rid her of the rest of her clothes, and the fear that she wouldn't let anyone else touch her like that again. Instead, she took everything into the washroom and changed there under the watchful eye of Natsu's fish.

When she returned, he was holding out her raincoat for her and all she could see was the black heart sticking out of the pocket. The top of the golden L. She wriggled into the jacket before he could notice and did the buttons up all the way to her neck. "Thanks for having me over."

Natsu bent and started putting on his shoes. "You should come by again. I had fun."

His words washed over her, she was staring at his shoes. "What are you doing?"

He looked up. "Getting my shoes on?"

Lucy said very clearly, "I don't need you to bring me home."

"I can't let you go on your own. It's getting dark."

"I'm fine."

"I felt bad about it the other night," he said dismissively. "You had your friend with you then, though, so I thought maybe it was okay. I shouldn't have."

There was a no outsiders rule at Rose's. She'd lose her spot if someone saw her bring him around. "I appreciate the thought, but can't let you walk me home. I can't."

She must have really sounded desperate because he stopped pulling on his shoes and straightened so he could search her eyes. "You don't have anything to be ashamed of."

"What would I be ashamed of?"

"Where you live?" he suggested. "I picked you up off the side of the road in Magnolia and brought you to Clover. You crashed on my couch. I'm not expecting riches. I don't care."

"That's fine, I just can't," Lucy reiterated after a moment. "I appreciate the thought, but it's complicated."

Natsu sighed. "Then let me call you a cab."

She didn't think he was going to settle for anything other than a yes. She nodded. Natsu pulled out his phone and tapped the screen a few times. Then he closed the app. "They'll be here soon."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

It could have been true. He was smiling slightly and he didn't look at all mean. Lucy took his hand. He searched her eyes again before kissing her, giving her plenty of time to tell him no or to think of excuses. He let her go. Lucy wished he hadn't. That quick peck felt more intimate than any of the other kisses he'd given her that day. "Let's go downstairs."

Moving outside of his apartment was like breaking a spell. Lucy looked at their hands linked together and thought she was crazy. She looked at Natsu's face and thought he was crazy, too. What was he doing inviting a girl he didn't really know into his apartment? And kissing her after he so blatantly pointed out that he'd picked her up off the streets and driven her to a new town. Inviting her to stay on his couch. Pursuing her when she ghosted him and cold-shouldered him and then kissed him in direct contradiction to everything she'd said up until that point. Those were the actions of a mad man.

She wondered if this scared him and if he loved it the way she loved having the Black Heart's eye.

Rain beat against the foyer glass. Cleaning agent stung Lucy's nose. She sat down on the worn wooden bench off to the side and Natsu joined her. Together, they watched cars whiz by. The streets were empty of pedestrians. Water burbled up from sewer drains, just swirling and swirling, never draining.

"This storm's Steven King-esque," Natsu said finally.

"You read his stuff?"

"Watch."

"What's your favourite?"

"The beginning of IT," he said very specifically.

"Just the beginning?" She'd read the book and it'd kept her awake well into the wee hours in the morning. Not the clown, specifically, but Beverly's father. _Are you still my little girl_?

"Yeah. When Georgie's running out into the rain and his boat's floating down the street. Before he gets taken by the clown."

"Why just that part?"

"It's got suspense and fear without any of the reveal," he said. "You know something terrible is going to happen and you're biting your nails, waiting, but Georgie, he's happy. His big brother Bill's made him a boat and he's loving the rain."

"Do you have a brother, Natsu?" Lucy asked on a whim.

"Sure. His name's Zeref. He never made me boats," Natsu said. "He loved me, though."

"Where is he now?"

He shrugged. "He's a C and E visitor."

"C and E?"

"Christmas and Easter."

"So he's not in town?"

He shrugged again a little too nonchalantly. "Sometimes. He actually contacted me the other day. He wanted to get together."

"Did you?"

Natsu focused on the driving rain. "I haven't answered him yet."

"But you'd like to." Lucy knew that expression. He and Zeref had _things_. Maybe not the same way she and her father had _things_ , but their relationship was complicated. He wanted Zeref to be something he wasn't.

Lights washed into the foyer. Natsu stood and took out his wallet. "That's your cab. Here." He handed Lucy some money. She tried to refuse, so he walked out and gave it directly to the cabdriver with instructions to give Lucy the change, despite her protests. Then he squeezed Lucy's hand and disappeared back inside. The door closed between them and she could either stay there and get soaked or she could use his cab money and head back towards Rose's.

"Where to?" the cab driver asked once the door was closed and she was shivering in the backseat.

"Union Street," Lucy said.

"House number?"

"Just the top of the street, where it meets Bay," she told him and the cab jolted off. She didn't want anyone knowing where she was going. She'd walk the rest of the way back.

The news played out of the speakers. The caster was covering the torrential downpour, and then she spoke a bit about the murder investigation and the ongoing curfew, reminding everyone of the eight-thirty deadline. The wipers went nonstop, cutting out most of her words. Lucy listened as intently as she could, trying to figure out if there was another girl missing for sure or if the caster was just talking about the last victim. It was hard to say.

The cab slowed to a stop at the intersection of Union and Bay. He gave Lucy three dollars' change. She said thank you and pulled up her hood.

Fat raindrops smacked into her coat and made hearing impossible. Her boots squelched. She watched the cab drive through a stream of water and thought of Natsu and Georgie and families. How a person could put a lot of stock into them and how sooner or later, the gloss was going to go away and they were going to let you down. She wondered if Natsu was the letdown or if it was Zeref, and who decided that Christmas and Easter get-togethers were enough. Natsu, she reasoned. Because Zeref was doing the reaching out, trying to contact him again. So what was it that Zeref did that Natsu thought was so damn bad?

Lucy was practically stepping on a pair of bare, pale feet by the time she realized her way was blocked. She gasped in a breath and stepped back; her hood fell and she could look at the girl in front of her.

She was as dead as she'd been the night before, her chest gaping, her hair wet and plastered to her thin, pencil-like neck. Her lips were blue and there were dark bags under her eyes. Blood ran from the hole in her chest, not like she was bleeding but like the rainwater was washing the blood away. And the evidence.

They stared at each other for ten solid seconds before Lucy could make her throat work. "Are you here for me?"

She never answered. Lucy tried other things. "He killed you, didn't he? And the police haven't found you yet. Where are you? How do I get to you? Tell me."

The girl reached for her. Lucy was too paralyzed to do anything but let it happen. Her touch was ice on her hand, winter cold. Her hand slipped through Lucy's, though, and left Lucy shaking. The dead girl twisted away then and started running through the rain. Lucy forgot to be afraid and chased after her, feet moving too fast, rain stinging her eyes and her cheeks.

They ran and ran, over the sidewalk and across roads. Cars honked as they got deeper into the city, back towards Natsu's house. Back towards the park. Towards the hill they'd raced carts down, where Lucy had first laid eyes on her.

The road narrowed and trees loomed like sentinels. Watchful and knowing. They sheltered the cart, garbage and cigarette butts, they kept secrets like the dead, unspeaking.

The girl dashed right, into the bushes at the base of the hill. Lucy tried to follow her but the next step she took was into a pothole the rain had made and hidden and her ankle twisted. Down she went, into the mud and the gravel and the puddle. She gasped; her leg was numb. That feeling was quickly being replaced, though, and she didn't like its substitute. Tears sprung to her eyes and a frustrated and pained yell came from her chest.

Her ghost was gone. And her ankle was burning.

A strong hand closed around Lucy's shoulder. She was sure it was the Black Heart, come to take her. Half hoped so the mystery would be solved. But a familiar voice asked, "Are you okay?" and she knew it was nothing so mystic or terrifying. "That was a nasty fall."

"Did you see her?" Lucy mulched out. "Did you see her here?"

He came to crouch in front of her. _L. Dreyar's_ hair was plastered to his head and his coat was soaked through, like his partner's, who stood a short distance away. "Who?"

"There was a girl," Lucy told him. "She ran through here. She had a hole in her chest."

Dreyar's face tightened. "You saw someone get hurt?"

Lucy realized what he was asking her. "No. She was one of the Black Heart's—"

"You found a body?"

"No. She found _me_. I was walking back to Rose's and she just showed up and—"

"Go back to the part with the Black Heart. I'm not following."

"She was already dead," Lucy said clearly. "She came out nowhere and she was trying to tell me something. Then she ran off. I chased after her and I fell."

Dreyar's mouth compressed. "Ghosts."

"Yes. Ghosts." Lucy realized how silly it sounded aloud; there was no going back. "She's not one of the victims you've already found. She's new. The girl you're looking for, I bet. Tell me what she looked like."

"You know I can't give you details of an ongoing investigation."

"Yes, but she's trying to tell me something. I think she wants me to help you find her."

Dreyar bounced on the balls of his feet, his hands steepled against his mouth. He took them away to ask a straight-faced question. "Have you been taking any drugs?"

"What?"

"You're under a lot of pressure. Looking for escape. Psychedelics, maybe? Narcotics busted a girl from Rose's not too long ago. She was high on 'shrooms."

"I don't do drugs."

He continued to study her, looking for something Lucy couldn't name. "Have you been sleeping enough lately?"

"Of course."

One brow went up. "Really?"

"That's what I said," Lucy reiterated. "Why are you acting like I'm lying?"

"Because. Rose's matron doesn't know everything but believe me, she has an uncanny ability to know when kids aren't in bed."

Did she know that her and Lisanna snuck out? That they'd crept back over the fence and onto the roof, past her window? He didn't _say_ that, though, and Lucy wasn't about to give him any information that he didn't already have. "Being awake isn't a crime."

"No, but a tired brain thinks things up," he said gently. "Plays tricks on us."

"I'm not crazy." She didn't _think_ so, anyway. Not in any way that _mattered._

"No. But ghosts don't exist."

"But—"

"They don't. You know that, Lucy."

Once, she thought she did. "I _saw_ her."

"I believe you thought you saw something, but it wasn't our girl."

"So you admit you're looking for someone. _Tell me what she looked like_ —"

" _Enough_."

Lucy bit the inside of her cheek to keep her eyes from watering.

Dreyar went back to pressing his hands against his mouth and Lucy made herself think, _maybe you have been imagining things_. He was right, she had been under a lot of pressure lately. A new city. A killer to obsess over. A girl she liked to kiss and a boy that liked to kiss her. She kept thinking about her father. And if he was looking for her.

Dreyar took in a deep breath. "Can you stand?"

Lucy wiggled her ankle. It was sore but she thought maybe she'd just twisted it. She held out her hand and he helped her up. He even steadied her. He smelled very faintly like liquor and cigarettes. And he had bags beneath his eyes. Lucy concluded that she wasn't the only one under a lot of pressure lately.

"Have you heard anything from my father?" She asked mostly to smudge out his resounding _enough_.

Dreyar pulled away from her and glanced his partner's way. Fernandez was examining the bush Lucy had indicated and the ravine behind it. "He's still looking for you if that's what you mean." Of course he was. Jude Heartfilia was the kind of man that would hunt her to the edge of the earth. "I talked to my captain, though, and she thinks for now as long as you're at Rose's and you're not making trouble and trouble's not coming for you, to let you be. You're of age. You're not doing anything illegal as far as we can tell. Are you?"

"No, of course not."

"Then." He shrugged. "Unless you want to come talk about what pushed you out of Magnolia?"

Lucy studied the ground. "No, Sir."

"What's it going to take to get you to reconsider?"

"Nothing because I have nothing to report," Lucy said adamantly.

"I can get you a female officer if that's what you prefer."

Her entire chest and her neck were hot. "No, thanks. I'm fine."

"When you're not, you know how to find me." A huge gust of wind brought along more rain. Dreyar looked back for his partner, who was crouching down and examining something. "Come on, let's take Lucy back."

"Go without me," Fernandez said absently. He was poking something with the end of his pen. Lucy strained to see and glimpsed white and yellow. Kind of like the hairclip in her pocket.

Dreyar's attention sharpened. "Did you find something?"

"Just take care of her and get back here."

Dreyar's hand hovered over Lucy's back, stopping her from going forward, towards him. "Come on."

"You're going to leave him alone?" Lucy stalled.

"There're units in the area," he responded.

"But don't you want to see?" she temped.

"I want you to _move_ _it_." Completely gone was his nice-cop attitude. Here was a businessman, sharp and to the point. He all but bullied her up the road and to the car she supposed she should have noticed when she zagged down the street, it was parked crookedly at the top, still mostly in the narrow laneway.

He got the back door for her. Lucy looked down the street one more time before obliging. Dreyar's partner stepped forward into the bushes in his nice Blundstones. He was going to get mud in his shoes.

Another wave of rain pushed against the windshield. The car came alive and the wipers swiped the drops aside. Dreyar picked up his radio and spoke into it quickly. Lucy caught bits and pieces of what he said but mostly, it sounded garbled to her. Dispatch came through on the other side, and then the car was rolling forward.

Lucy put her head against the cool window; warm air came from the vents and told her how cold she really was. Soaked through again. "How long does it take to catch a killer?"

Dreyar drummed his fingers. "Usually, we've got a witness by now and would be chasing some leads."

"So you haven't had anyone?"

"The closest we've got is a lady that said she thought she heard someone walking through the bushes once." He met her eyes in the mirror. "Most people are unreliable. Once in a while, though, you get a solid lead."

He seemed more talkative without his partner there. Lucy asked, "Have you given any thought as to how he's leading them away?"

"That's all I think about," he muttered.

They sat in silence for the space of two intersections. "Has he ever left notes for anyone?"

"Notes?"

"For his victims?" Lucy asked with forced casualness.

"Not that I'm aware of." He was just as casual. "Do you think that's something we should be mindful of?"

Lucy was always on the lookout for traps and recognized his camouflaged attempt to dig for information. "Just a thought." Silence again. Dreyar turned the car. Lucy asked, "Will you tell me what your partner found when you know?"

Headlights swung across Rose Place's driveway. "What part of _police investigation_ don't you get?"

"Sure, but I think I deserve to know what he found."

"And I think I deserve a million dollars. Too bad the lottery doesn't agree with me."

"Detective—"

"I told you, Miss Heartfilia, if you wanted to get involved in policing matters, there're courses for that. Go to school like the rest of the chumps and apply to the Clover PD. Otherwise, I can't help you."

"But I want to know—"

He got out and got her door for her. He oozed no-nonsense. Lucy got up and got out. He ushered her up the walkway and the stairs and hammered on the door. While they waited for Miss Porlyusica, he turned on her. Rain was running down his temples and collecting on his jaw. "Listen to me. Enough is enough. You keep showing up where the Black Heart is and it doesn't look good, Lucy. If you're on the hunt, stop. If you're involved, come clean. If you know more than what you're saying, I need to know. No one likes a hero. Especially an under-rested one."

Her cheeks were hot all over again. "I'm _not_ crazy."

"And I'm not mean. Now we're both liars."

How wise was it to scream in a cop's face? She wanted to.

Miss Porlyusica yanked back the door at that moment. She looked Lucy over head-to-toe with disappointment. "Minerva has been looking for her rainwear. You best put it back before she sees it on you."

Lucy's lip trembled. She pushed into the manor, leaving Dreyar and his nan to talk lowly about things she didn't think she'd be privy to.

* * *

A long shadow spread across the back of the house. Lisanna found its deepest pitch, a place beneath a huge, dripping cedar, and nestled into it to wait, crouched on the ground, knees up around her chin. There was a cigarette butt beside her. She picked it up restlessly and flicked its fibreglass filter with her jagged nail. That, and the residual drops of rainwater were the only external sounds that met her ears. Inside, though, she could hear Minerva raging. Someone had taken her raincoat and her rain boots and no one was fessing up.

Lisanna closed her eyes and attempted to focus her senses on the outside world. She hadn't been at Rose's for very long, but sometimes, it felt like this little back alley was the only quiet place in the manor. Someone was always going on about something.

The door burst open and Erza came out in a huff; the illusion was shattered. She was in a tank top and a pair of tights and sandals, despite the cooler weather. She was putting a cigarette in her mouth. Lisanna didn't know she was a smoker.

Erza flicked her lighter and puffed a cherry to life before acknowledging Lisanna. "I thought I was the only one that knew about this place."

"I found it the other day when I was taking out the garbage."

Erza blew out cigarette smoke and coughed. So she didn't smoke regularly. "Don't tell Minerva about it."

"I wouldn't."

Erza tapped the end of her cigarette agitatedly. "What are you doing out here?"

Lisanna imagined telling Erza about Bickslow's note and about the parking lot and the moon and the bruises the concrete bumper left on her ribs. She'd tell her everything she swore not to confess. Erza would take it all stoically and simmer on it until she decided she was either enraged or apathetic. She was predictable. There was safety in that. Lisanna didn't feel like being safe just then.

"I just needed some air. Why are you out here?"

"Air," Erza said mimicked shortly.

"Is everything alright?"

"Minerva's driving me crazy these last few days. She's waiting for a job offer and she's met someone and I can't stand her. She's happy one moment and psycho crazy the next. I'll be happy when she leaves Rose's."

Lisanna said, "I saw them. We. We saw them. Lucy and I. The boy Minerva met, I mean. I think she really likes him."

"You mean when you were sneaking around the other night?"

Feeling brave and insane, Lisanna asked, "How would you know if you weren't sneaking around yourself?"

Erza could have said anything, really, and Lisanna wouldn't have been the wiser, but Erza was a terrible liar. Her neck went red and her eyes dropped to the ground. She was flustered.

"Do you meet someone out here?" Lisanna ventured. "Were you here when Lucy and I were out here? Is that how you knew we weren't upstairs?"

"It's against the rules to tell anyone where Rose's is. If Miss Porlyusica knew someone had leaked that information, they'd lose their spot at the shelter," Erza said firmly. "I would never jeopardize myself like that."

"But if you didn't expressly _say_ where it was? If someone figured it out?" Lisanna hedged. "You wouldn't really be breaking the rules."

Erza stamped on her cigarette butt. "Here's some advice. If you're scared you're going to get caught, chances are you're doing something wrong and you should stop. If you can't stop, tell someone. Maybe they can stop for you."

Lisanna didn't know if she ever wanted to stop.

Erza turned from her and started back towards the manor. "Your friend better hope Minerva doesn't realize she took her rainwear."

The door closed. Lisanna was alone again. She leaned back against the tree with a sigh and pinched the cigarette butt between her fingers. All the rest on the ground had a ring of pomegranate lip gloss around the filter; this one didn't. Did it belong to Erza's mystery friend? Or did someone else know about this place?

"If you want one, you only have to ask, kitten. Don't smoke that."

Lisanna didn't turn around; he'd be expecting that. "You shouldn't be here."

"I should be where you are."

"You want to be where I am, it's different. You can really mess stuff up for me, being out here." She said the last thinking about Erza.

"It hurts me to see you like this. You've cut out everyone in your life, me, your sister, your brother. He's worried about you. We all are." He came to stand in front of her. His leather boots were caked in mud and dead leaves. He crouched so he could see into her eyes.

Lisanna drank him in. Even when he kissed her, she kept her eyes open. Her heart was in her throat. She spoke around it when she could. "I'm afraid of him."

Bickslow knew she wasn't talking about Elfman. "He'd never hurt you. Never. He loves you. Everyone loves you." He got on his knees in front of her and cupped her face. He used his thumbs to smooth from the bridge of her nose under her eyes, down her cheeks to her lips. "Everyone."

He kissed her again. What an easy thing to get lost in, a kiss. Soon enough, he was palming her breast. Lisanna lifted into the touch, all at once hot and cold with memory. She wanted him to touch her more. And more. She wanted to be dizzy with it. She wanted to be insane with it.

She pulled up her sweater and let him in. His fingers smoothed over the material of her bra and her head spun. Bickslow was an addiction. He lifted her up and dropped her at unexpected times and as she told Lucy, she lived for the fall. Most girls wanted the _I love you's_ , and the hand holding and the searing stares. Lisanna? She wanted his cold shoulders, his distant gaze like there was always something more on the horizon, she wanted his lunatic laughter, it started and it had no end in sight. Unsettling in her bones.

It was sick. Mira told her that. She told her that one day, it was going to get her into trouble, and Mira had been right. Trouble had come for its dues and Lisanna was shortchanged.

Bickslow hovered around her now-pale bruises. He told her to stop thinking about that night but that's where his head was at. Submersed in the past. Did he like what he saw then? Lisanna hadn't known as it was happening and she didn't know now. He was still an enigma. And wasn't that part of the appeal?

He stroked between her legs over her pants and she sighed. He always knew how to please her. A roll of his thumb, two, and she was arching into his touch, greedy for more. His mouth worked busily on hers and his breath puffed against her cheek. She'd missed this. All of this. How did she ever think she could live without it?

Then he pulled away and without his mouth on hers, she wondered how she could ever live with it?

"You should go."

"Thing were just getting fun, kitten," he whispered.

A dark thrill moved from Lisanna's head to her toes. "You need to go."

"You don't mean that." He tried to come in. Lisanna pushed him back.

"I do. I came here for a reason. I don't want you near me anymore. I don't want to see you anymore. Not unless—"

He turned mean. "Unless we go to the police? You could have done that days ago, but you'd rather hide."

Lisanna pushed back from him and yanked her shirt back down. "Leave." Bickslow laughed his lunatic laugh. Everything was a game. Always. " _Get away_."

"Alright, alright," he held up his hands; there was still that mocking grin on his face. He stood and she could see him pressing against his pants, but he had the ability to be greatly patient. "I'll see you around, kitten. Think of me." The last was a command Lisanna didn't think she could ignore.

Bickslow turned away and shadows enveloped him. There was a tall cedar fence surrounding the property back here; he lifted himself over with little issue and then he was gone.

Lisanna worked on getting her breathing back under control. Her skin felt electrified. Every little touch could be made into something sweet. Between her legs was wet and she wanted to touch herself and hated that he'd left her with that feeling.

Then backdoor squealed open, stealing the opportunity from her. Lucy came out with a blue-box full of recycling. Like she felt Lisanna's eyes on her, Lucy turned and pegged her even in the shadows. "There you are; I've been looking everywhere."

Lisanna got her noodle-like legs under her. "You have?"

"Come upstairs with me," Lucy said. "I have a ton of stuff to tell you." She had the same manic-like glow Bickslow had. _Dangerous_ , Mira whispered in her head, but Lisanna didn't know how to love anything that wasn't.


	11. Chapter 11

Lucy held her breath at the top of the stairs. Lisanna was nice but where did that niceness end? When would she say, _this has gone too far,_ and tell her she was deluded, as Detective Dreyar had?

"Are you going to go in?" Lisanna asked so quietly, the voices downstairs almost drowned her out as dinner time crept by.

 _She says her boyfriend sees the dead all the time,_ Lucy reminded herself. Lisanna wasn't like Detective Dreyar, she only had one foot firmly rooted on the ground, not two. She knew what it was to be plagued by the unexplained. She thought something and sometimes, that something happened.

"Lucy?"

"Yeah." Lucy filled her lungs and quashed one nervous butterfly. The others escaped. She opened the door only as much as she had to and slipped in. She waited for Lisanna to follow and closed everything up again.

When she turned back around, Lisanna was looking at what she'd done. The Ouija board was out and the candles were lit. The hairclip she'd picked out of the rainwater was sitting at the head of the board and the black heart she'd plucked from the tree was on its left. "What is all this?"

"I went hunting for the Black Heart. I also found that hairclip on the ground."

Predictably, Lisanna didn't care about the hairclip. "You went hunting for the Black Heart?"

"And he left me a note."

" _Lucy_."

She kept her chin high as if she were beyond reproach. "And then, when I was coming back from Natsu's—"

"You went to his home?"

"—I saw another dead girl. She was here, at the end of the street. She started running and I followed all the way back to where we were cart racing and those detectives were there, and Fernandez found a hairclip. Just like the one I found. Around the same spot."

She didn't look like she was following.

"He was _rattled_ when he found it," Lucy pressed. "Like, so rattled he wouldn't bring me home with his partner. He stayed to investigate. Obviously, it belongs to the missing girl."

"We don't know if there's a girl missing."

" _I_ know there is. Why else would they be out scouring the park for her? She's there. They just haven't found her yet." Or maybe they just recently had? Now that they were looking in the right place.

Lisanna's legs collapsed and she fell to the bed. "Can we talk about the note?"

That was the thing she wanted to talk about the _least_. "It doesn't say much."

"This is it?" Lisanna picked up the pilled black heart.

"It was hanging in a tree for me." The construction paper was still soggy but the golden L shone like a sun in the candlelight.

Lisanna's fingers shook when she traced the heart's edge. Lucy chewed her cheek, waiting for her to open it, scared because once someone else saw it, it felt like it was out of her hands, and excited because _this was real_. Lisanna cracked the heart and looked inside. Her eyes scanned over the words quickly. She closed it just as fast. "He _knows_."

"And this was sloppy of him."

"No. No, I don't think so. You're a target, Lucy. He's going to come for you." Her eyes were large and there was colour in her cheeks.

"He could have taken me today if he wanted but he didn't. He likes the game." Just like she did.

"Do you hear yourself? Take this to Detective Dreyar and Fernandez. Tell them that he left you a note. They'll be able to protect you."

Lucy was shaking her head before Lisanna finished speaking. "No."

" _Why_?"

"Because we don't know who the killer is!"

"And that's why we should take it to them! There could be clues on this. Fingerprints. A way to trace his handwriting."

"Don't you watch _any_ crime movies, Lisanna?" Lucy scolded. " _I_ put my fingerprints all over it, firstly. And, we already went over this. The killer is luring girls away from the streets. _Despite_ the curfew. Hell, he might even be doing it in broad daylight for all we know. So he's someone that people know, and someone that they trust. A doctor, a public figure, a public servant." She dangled the last like it was a worm on a hook.

Lisanna raised her eyebrow. "A public servant?"

"Like a policeman."

"No."

" _Yes_. A policeman investigating this case, perhaps."

"Have you even met Detective Dreyar?" Lisanna laughed, short and hysterical.

"Sure, but I wasn't talking about him."

Lisanna sobered. "His partner?"

"He's weird."

"He's not the killer."

"We don't know that." Lucy schemed it all out as she spoke, flushing out the possibility she'd only considered in passing. "He's so quiet and he has that tattoo and he has access to all of the crime scenes, so he could be covering up his evidence. Being a Detective, though, it's possible he knows all of the tricks to leave none. And, most importantly, if a policeman asked me to follow him, I would. It works."

"Except it's crazy and a tattoo doesn't make a person a killer."

"Which is why I set up the Ouija board to ask our victim what she knows." Lucy snuck a peek at Lisanna from beneath her lashes. Lisanna's fingers were still clenched together and her lips were pressed.

"Alright," she said. "We'll ask. But don't try to force the answers your way."

"I wouldn't."

Lisanna settled on the ground beside the board and put the heart back where it came from. Lucy followed her down to the ground, opposite. She touched the glass first; Lisanna followed. Lucy swore she felt an electric charge move through her. She smiled at the board, feeling hopeful.

"If there's anyone there, please answer us," Lisanna spoke first. "Any spirits at all. We need to speak to you."

Lucy waited with bated breath for the glass to shift but it did not. "That's fine. I'll talk. I saw you today." Could you speak to a ghost so casually? She didn't know. "I saw you and you ran from me. I want to help you."

There still wasn't any movement from the glass but Lucy _felt_ a rising energy in the room. Her skin was covered in goosebumps and it felt colder.

"Tell me who you are and where I can find you."

"Tell us," Lisanna echoed and the energy rose again. "Tell us who you are."

"Tell us."

The candles flickered. Lucy held her breath and the glass edged to the left over the letter I, so, so slow. It moved to S a little faster, and then L and A. She memorized everything, a flurry of letters that came afterwards. It settled and she wrote it down.

"Islamorris." She read it all at once; her mind separated it. "Isla Morris."

Lisanna looked scared. "I think we should stop."

"No. She went missing a couple of weeks ago from an industrial lot on the boundary between Magnolia and Clover."

"Please, Lucy. I don't want to do this anymore," Lisanna pleaded.

But Lucy put her fingers back on the glass and so did Lisanna. "Did the Black Heart take you?"

 _Yes_ , was written out and Lucy's heart leapt into her throat.

"Was it Detective Jellal Fernandez? Is he the Black Heart?" The glass hovered between Lucy's cut-out _Yes_ and _No._ "Don't you know?"

It moved to _No._

"Fine. That's fine." She'd figure that out herself if she had to. "Where are you?"

_Deep. Dark. Damp._

"Where? I need a place. A road. A building."

Nothing.

"In Clover?"

It edged to yes.

"By your apartment?"

It slowly creeped towards the middle again and then stopped.

"Isla?" Lucy asked. "Isla, can you hear me? Answer me."

Nothing.

" _Answer_ me."

"She's gone," Lisanna said.

Lucy concentrated _extra_ hard. " _Answer_ me!"

Lisanna took her fingers away from the glass like she'd been touching something unsavoury. A maggoty carcass. A dirty secret.

"Come back, Lisanna. Please."

She shook her head so hard, her hair stuck to her glossed lips. "She's gone, Lucy. Let it be."

As if it were something she could just let go of. A heavy book or a smouldering gun. "Can I have your phone?"

"Why?"

"I need to see her," Lucy said.

Lisanna sighed and took out her phone. Lucy typed Isla Morris into the search bar and was surprised by the results. "This isn't the girl." She was blonde, for one thing, and her eyes were the colour of coffee.

Lisanna looked over her shoulder. "No, that's definitely her. Isla Morris. It was all over the news a couple weeks ago."

"Yes, sure, she's _that_ girl, but she's not the girl I chased through the street today."

Lisanna was nonplussed. "Does that matter? We can't control who reaches out to us."

Of course not. And she was a victim of the Black Heart. She turned back to Isla's delicate features. Her nose was sharp and small, her chin soft, her hair blonde like trimmed wheat. The picture her family used for her Missing Persons photo was from her college graduation. She was in a poppy-red dress. "The police don't know she was taken by him."

Lisanna pulled her knees up to her chest and leaned her cheek against them. "She was a waitress at a restaurant on the outskirts of town."

"How do you know?"

"Because it was all over the local news. She went missing before any of the others did, but then they found that note in her apartment and decided that it wasn't suspicious."

"Why would they think that?"

Again, Lisanna shrugged. "They're busy, aren't they?"

"Too busy to look for a missing person?"

"Shortly after she was deemed missing, the first girl was found in the park. Without any evidence of foul play, I guess it got put on the backburner."

"That's wrong."

"That's using taxpayer money responsibly."

"You don't believe that."

Lisanna's hard edge crumbled. "No. I don't. It was wrong. They should have looked for her."

"We can if they won't."

Lisanna looked downright panicked now. "What if he knows we're looking?"

"So what?"

" _Lucy_ ," she scolded again and Lucy took her words into consideration. They _did_ sound deranged. She checked herself and tried again, this time with a reasonable edge to her voice.

"It's dangerous but if we don't look for her, no one else will and her family will never have closure. Besides, this could be the Black Heart's very first victim. There's something different about this one. She was special. And she was kept away from the others. We need to find her. She could tell us who he is."

Lisanna closed up the Ouija board with a carefulness and patience that was forced. Lucy recognized the attempts of a girl trying to keep her life on track. "We don't know where to start looking."

"Someplace deep and dark and damp," Lucy said.

"So anywhere? A cellar, a sewer, a silo?"

Lucy's mind couldn't help but go back to Natsu, and to Georgie, chasing his boat down the gutter to the sewer's edge. She was more frightened of made-up stories than she was of real-life killers and hoped their investigation didn't take them into a sewer. "We'll look at Orthos of the surrounding area where she went missing and we'll pick out features that may be similar."

Lisanna blew out the candles and they were in the dark. When had the sun set? The noise from downstairs was also diminished. There was a TV on the main floor that was going but that was it. And the perpetual sound of rain. It'd slowed down.

"Can we access the computer downstairs?"

"Not for this stuff, not right now."

"But later?"

"If I say no, will you do it anyway?"

"Yes, likely."

"And you'll hunt for her all on your own and the Black Heart will find you and he'll take you. Be reasonable, Lucy," Lisanna implored. Lucy only looked at her. Lisanna sighed. "Fine. I'll help."

"Thank you."

Lisanna's phone buzzed in Lucy's hand. She glanced down and saw a text from a girl that looked just like Lisanna, but with longer hair. Lisanna took her phone back and turned it off. She threw it up on her bed.

"Was that your sister or something?"

"Probably."

"You don't want to talk to her?"

"No. Tell me about when you went to Natsu's."

She left very little room for argument. Lucy said, "His roommate was at that girl's house. He made me pancakes."

Lisanna lifted her eyebrow; she looked less scared now. "For the entire day?"

"For the morning."

"And afterwards?"

"We watched a movie."

"And in between?"

"He kissed me again," she admitted.

Lisanna smiled widely. She crawled to Lucy's side, pushing the Ouija board a little further beneath the bed with her socked toe. It was like no drama had come between them. "How was it?"

"Like the first time. Nice. Good. I liked it." She could still feel his lips if she closed her eyes and tried.

Lisanna broke the spell. "Did he do anything else?"

Lucy cracked open her eyes. Lisanna's cheeks were still red, though now she wasn't scared; the difference was apparent, the way she hung off Lucy's words. "I think he wanted to."

"Why didn't he? You were alone, weren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Did you not want him to?"

"I don't know," Lucy said honestly. "I think about it and I don't know if I like the idea, but when I'm with him…"

"You want more."

"I don't know how to ask and it seems like he won't move on unless I do." It was because of that first kiss. She told him no and he did anyway and now he felt bad. She knew it. It was frustrating to want someone to both respect her boundaries and to push them because she was too afraid to push them herself.

"Do you want to practice?"

Lucy's fingers pricked with nervousness and her head swam. "Right now?"

Lisanna's collarbone jutted out when she lifted her shoulder. "Why not? Ask me to kiss you."

Lucy bunched her fingers up beneath her folded knees so she couldn't twiddle them nervously. "I don't know, Lisanna…"

"Just ask."

Lucy breathed out. "Kiss me?" she squeaked.

Lisanna leaned in. Lucy could smell the cinnamon on her breath; she'd been chewing gum. Her lips were slick sliding across hers in a mimic of a kiss that Lucy felt herself completing. It was a much more patient kiss today, slow and soft and with only a hint of tongue before Lisanna leaned back a little and said, "Good. Now ask me to touch you."

Electricity moved through Lucy's middle and stopped between her legs. "Touch me?"

Lisanna put her hand on Lucy's cheek innocently enough. "See? Easy."

"I guess."

"Did you want to practice again?"

Lucy heard herself say, "Kiss me?"

Lisanna put her mouth on Lucy's once more. This kiss was a little more involved. Tongue and teeth, a slow waltz towards some monster Lucy was eager to see. "Touch me?" Lisanna let her hand fall from Lucy's cheek to her neck where she lingered. Lucy shivered.

"Touch me." That was more of a command, whispered out between lips and Lisanna obeyed, moving over Lucy's tank top and sliding her thumb across the very peak of her left breast. It felt like she'd been jolted. The initial shock was softened by her next touch, and the one after that, gentle strokes that put cotton in her mind and arrested her breathing.

Lisanna leaned away. Her lips were swollen and she shimmied her hips. "Just like that."

"Can we try again?" Lucy didn't know what she was saying or what Lisanna was thinking when she came back for another slow kiss but she told her again, "Touch me," and Lisanna obeyed with a little more force this time, filling her hand with Lucy's breast and squeezing. Lucy sighed and the sigh seemed to knock something loose: reserve.

Lisanna adjusted so they were more face-to-face and straddled one of Lucy's legs. Lucy leaned back against the bed and let it all happen. A little bit of control, asking for what she wanted, and a lot of untetheredness as Lisanna showed her what that meant.

"Touch me," Lucy commanded again and Lisanna put her other hand between Lucy's legs, tracing her thigh closer and closer to that one sweet spot. Lucy closed her eyes and put her head back against the mattress, wondering, _is this happening,_ and feeling at the same time as if it was always going to.

Lisanna kissed down her throat to her collarbone and the place between her breasts but stopped there. Lucy wasn't concerned with what her mouth was doing, though, it was her fingers. Her fingers sliding across where her legs met, rubbing up and down gently, driving her utterly mad with each patient stroke. Each gentle pinch. She wanted more. And more. And it was that knowledge, what she wanted from Lisanna, rather than what she was receiving, that made her come.

She tried to be quiet with her embarrassing whimper. Lisanna backed away. She wasn't smiling and she wasn't frowning, she was just looking at Lucy. Lucy didn't know what she'd do if Lisanna asked for anything in return.

Thankfully, she didn't have to figure that out. Lisanna stood and retreated to her bed. "See? You just have to ask."

Lucy couldn't control her blush.

Lisanna put her head into her phone where she tapped out a quick text. Then Lucy saw the green-grey of Google Earth as she looked up Orthoimages as if nothing had happened. _Because it's okay_. Everything was okay.

She went to the washroom to clean up and wasn't sure she recognized the girl that looked back at her. Her hair was frizzy and her cheeks and chest were red. She was thin through her jaw though she still pushed the limits of her bra. She pulled down her shirt and looked at her body. It was unmarked, Lisanna had been so gentle. Her skin was still covered in goosebumps and her nipples were still erect. Lucy tucked everything back into her bra.

When she came back, Lisanna was standing by the door. "I think everyone's in their rooms, at least. We should go get those maps now."

"Okay." Having something so dire to focus on helped smooth away any awkwardness Lucy felt. She followed Lisanna downstairs to the computer room and stood guard while Lisanna turned on the machine and printed off images from her email. They returned upstairs together to start highlighting places a body might be hidden.

* * *

Lisanna waited until Lucy was snoring to edge the black heart out of her photo album and take it downstairs. The hallway was dark and so was Miss Porlyusica's room. She opened the front door with a sneakiness she'd learned at the crib; she didn't want Mira and Elfman in her business _always_.

The rain had stopped; the clouds were still trapping the stars. She used the cover of darkness to move to the end of the street where she sent a text. Then she sat in the shadow of a great maple tree and tried not to think about hearts and parks.

It took twenty minutes for him to arrive. Lisanna watched him idle at the curb for forty long seconds before she emerged from the bushes, just in case they were being watched. He unlocked his doors when he saw her. Lisanna climbed into the alcohol and cigarette smelling car.

"Are you fucking crazy?" were the first words _L. Dreyar_ said to her. "And _why_ didn't you answer me when I called? I thought…"

She'd been taken. "I didn't want you trying to convince me to either stay at Rose's until you got there or to wait until the morning," Lisanna said primly, earning herself a terrible glower.

"So you come out here at," he checked his radio. "One-thirty in the morning when there's literally a fucking killer on the loose?"

Lisanna felt bolder after telling Bickslow to leave and kissing Lucy. Shame no longer shackled her whenever she looked at the policeman she'd unsuccessfully coerced. "Lucy thinks your partner is the Black Heart."

Laxus stared at her.

"She told me herself. She thinks so because it must be someone girls trust leading them away from the roads and lights."

Laxus sighed and shook his head. "I told her time and again, leave the investigating to the police. Her reasoning's sound, it's someone either very charismatic or someone trustworthy, but she's way off her mark naming my partner."

"I'm just the messenger."

Laxus faced forward again. "Is that all you had for me? Because an unsubstantiated claim like that definitely could have waited until morning."

"Lucy received this when she was hunting for the Black Heart today." Lisanna held up her prize like it was a shield.

Laxus didn't take it from her. "Is that what I think it is?"

"He left it for her in a tree in the park." Lisanna opened it to reveal the note inside. "It's personalized."

He read it rapidly and swore. "When?"

"Today. Well before she saw you."

"What the hell is with that girl?" He put his car into drive.

Lisanna grabbed the gearshift and put it back into neutral. The motor revved. "Where are you going?"

"To get her, obviously," Laxus said and put the car back into drive.

"You _can't."_ Lisanna reached for the gearshift again and got her hand batted away.

"Your friend just had a letter left for her by a guy that's been killing girls just like her. You brought me the letter because you obviously wanted me to take action, so let me fucking take action."

"That's _not_ why I brought it to you," Lisanna said. "At least, not really. I wanted you to know he's been watching her. But if you go pick her up now, she's going to know that I showed you that note and she's going to lock me out, and if she does that, who knows, maybe she'll leave Rose's and it'll be easier for him to get at her."

He looked at her in the glow of his dash. He needed to shave his growing beard. "I can't just let this lie. She could be in danger."

"And now you know, so keep an eye on her," Lisanna said. "She wants to look for the girl Isla Morris."

He furrowed his brow. "The waitress that left town a couple weeks ago?"

"Yes. Lucy plans on going to the west end of town and starting there, where she went missing."

"Why?"

"Because she thinks she was a victim, too. The first," Lisanna confided. "So just… keep your eye on her. The Black Heart won't be far behind her. She might be your best chance of catching him."

Laxus considered her for a long time. "I need to take pictures of that at least. And if my captain thinks your idea's fucking dumb, I'm calling it and bringing her in."

What could she say? "Okay."

"And make sure she doesn't destroy that."

"She won't," Lisanna promised. "It's special to her."

Laxus put the car back in drive and took one-handed pictures using his phone. "That girl needs help."

"Which is why she's at Rose's." Lisanna manipulated the card.

"She needs more help than Rose's can give her, I think."

"She's not that bad. She's just…"

"Just?"

"Lost. She needs something she thinks she can only find when she catches the killer."

"What?"

"Satisfaction. Thrill?"

"Where'd she get a crazy idea like that?"

"You tell me, Detective. Don't you do what you do for the thrill?"

"No, to make the world a bit better of a place," he muttered and Lisanna laughed.

"Were you thinking of that better tomorrow the night we met?"

His fingers flexed. "Don't talk about that."

"Why?" she prodded. "Does it remind you how little progress you made in this case or does it make you uncomfortable thinking about us?" She didn't know _what_ was possessing her. Bickslow's mania. Lucy's desperation.

"Yes, and yes," he said, surprising her. "It shouldn't have happened, Lisanna. I'm sorry. It was out of line."

"Because you were trying to pay me."

"Yes." He slowed the car down at Rose's curb and turned the lights off. The engine still forced luke-warm and pine-scented air from the vents.

"But if you _weren't_ , would it have been okay?"

"If that was what you wanted."

"So if I asked you now, and said that's what I wanted?" Something. Something to fill her up after Bickslow gutted her completely. She wanted hands on her body and kisses all over her skin. She wanted someone inside of her to walk her to the edge so she could look over at that great big fall and know that it didn't walk out of her life the moment she told Bickslow to go away. Laxus Dreyar would be a good person for that job.

He squeezed his wheel too tightly again. "This would be a different situation—"

She leaned forward before he stopped speaking and kissed him more forcefully than she'd kissed Lucy. She could taste his beer and his cigarettes and it was almost like she was kissing Bickslow. Except Laxus didn't call her kitten. And Bickslow never would have pulled away from her.

Lisanna chose to ignore the uncomfortable look on his face and yanked at her sweater. She'd left her bra inside and the air was cool on the tips of her breasts. She pushed back into him and kissed him again. He made a muffled noise and grabbed her sides. It wasn't to pull her closer. She was pushed back again.

He wiped his mouth. "Stop. This still isn't right."

And he was suddenly very interested in doing the right thing, Lisanna saw. A frustrated yell burgeoned in her chest. She swallowed it down and found she was embarrassed again. She pulled her sweater on inside out and opened the door.

"Wait, Lisanna."

She paused halfway out, wondering if he'd tell her to come back in and close the door. Maybe they'd drive somewhere else, out from beneath the watchful eye of his Nan's home.

"Text me again when you go out tomorrow. I want to know where and when, so you can be tailed."

She got out and closed the door without answering him.

There was no one waiting for her inside, though she heard Miss Porlyusica moving in her bedroom and knew her nighttime tryst didn't go unnoticed. She thought the only reason she _wasn't_ interrogated was that she'd recognized her grandson's car out front.

Lisanna climbed the stairs with Lucy's heart burning a hole in her hand. Their bedroom door squeaked open. Lucy was still asleep, head beneath her covers. Lisanna snuck her album back out and found the heart's place again in amongst all the faces of the killer's victims. She looked at the Ortho maps last, touching the place where Isla Morris was lost. She would be found again.

Lisanna prepared herself for a nighttime of empty nightmares.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I missed a day! Sorry, I was trying to reformat my book and just uggh. formatting sucks.

The voice of a professional reporter called Lucy from a dream of black and red hearts. Fake and real. Sunlight crawled through the drapes and made gold on the ceiling. Lucy followed the voice to Lisanna's bed, where she lay with her phone held up so she could watch the news.

"What is that?"

"They found the girl they were looking for."

Lucy threw her blankets off and knelt at the edge of Lisanna's bed. It was _cold_. The heatwave ended and fall was finally here. Lisanna shifted over and pulled back her blankets and Lucy took up her invitation, climbing into her bed and sharing her pillow so they could watch the horror together.

The reporter stood outside the Clover Police Department building. Wind gripped her copper hair and her light fall coat was done up to her chin. Her makeup was applied with a gentle hand. It made her look professional and solemn.

" _I'm here today at the Clover Police Department with one of the lead Detectives working the Black Heart case. He'll be joining us in just a moment to give a statement regarding Natasha Green, the body of the latest victim found in the forest around East Mill Park yesterday."_

A picture of the girl popped up on screen. Lucy's breath arrested in her lungs as she looked into familiar eyes. Her hair was dry and pinned back by her daisy clips, her skin glowed with life. The white pouf dress she was wearing in her picture was identical to the one she'd shown to Lucy, though. This picture had been taken the day she died.

"That's her," Lucy said over the reporter. "That's the girl I saw the night Natsu kissed me. That's the girl I chased back to the hill yesterday. I knew she was out there. I _knew_ it."

The crowd made a kerfuffle. The reporter checked over her shoulder; Detective Fernandez was descending the stairs.

_'Here is Detective Jellal Fernandez to make a statement."_

The camera swung behind the reporter and the lens focused on Jellal. He came to rest behind a portable podium in a sombre black suit and shirt. His tie was up tight to his throat and his hair was slicked back from his face. He looked stoic and unapproachable but when he spoke, Lucy could hear the tension in his voice.

_"On Friday, September twenty-seventh, Miss Green was reported missing by her fiancé when she did not return from catering a children's party held by the fountains in East Mill Park. Police made every effort to locate her from the moment she was reported missing to the moment she was found yesterday afternoon by myself and Clover PD techs on the banks of Muller Creek, life signs absent._

_"The nature of her injuries suggest that she_ was _taken by the killer the media is calling Black Heart. Her family wishes that no media personnel contact them at this time and we request that you respect their right to privacy."_

One reporter in the front of the group mimicked everyone's thoughts. They didn't _care_ about her family. They wanted a roast. _"You never put out any social media requests looking for her and you made no announcements. Why is that?"_

Fernandez's stress was wrapped in plastic; if Lucy didn't see the bead of sweat on his temple, she'd never know he was under pressure. _"That option was discussed at length but in the end was not considered viable."_

 _"Viable?"_ a reporter with blonde hair squeaked. " _You could have saved that girl's life had you just made a Facebook post. You know that, right?"_

_"No comment."_

_"If you're going to start spewing that, maybe the police should send out someone that_ will _comment. A girl is dead. You chose not to act—"_

Jellal's facade cracked. _"All due respect, Miss Relight, this killer finishes with his victims in moments. Miss Green's clock was ticking the second he got her away from the crowd. No Facebook post would have saved her."_

The crowd hushed. Detective Fernandez was pushed out of the way by a woman with long, silky hair. _"Thank you, Detective. I'll take over from here."_

 _"Captain Milkovich,_ why _wasn't the public notified about Miss Green's disappearance?"_

_"That's a police matter and I cannot comment."_

_"_ Someone _has to!"_

She spoke right over the reporter. _"The Clover Police Department is deeming East Mill Park off-limits to the public. Anyone caught on its premises will be arrested immediately. Signs will be posted to this effect. The curfew is still in effect and I_ stress _, do not approach strangers, do not travel alone, and always inform your loved ones of your whereabouts."_

Everyone started talking at once. Lucy couldn't focus on what they were saying. In the corner of the screen, they were showing a picture of Natasha Green. She stood in front of a table full of food at the edge of the park, where there were almost no trees and the city was right there. Anyone would feel safe there on an unseasonably hot fall day, the sun blazing.

"How did he lure you away?" Lucy wondered aloud. " _How_?"

The picture cycled into a feed of Fernandez and his team cordoning off the area the day Natasha Green was found. It was still raining; everything looked shiny _and_ gloomy. Lucy could see where she and Natsu had been laying. If she had followed the hearts to the left instead of the right yesterday morning, she would have tripped over Natasha. Instead, she'd found a heart in a tree with her initial on it.

Natasha's body was beneath a sheet already, and above her head, caught in the bark of a craggy bur oak was her construction-paper heart. Its edges had flopped, soggy with rain and torn by the wind, and its black colour had started to bleed out, so it looked like a slug, slimy and insufficient.

Lisanna closed the webpage and the silence resounded through the room. "Hey," Lucy protested.

"We're not going to learn anything from that. The police don't know and even if they did, they're not sharing for the killer to see. It'll only make him cover his tracks better. What time do you work?"

It was Monday. She'd almost forgotten. "Ten until six."

Lisanna chewed the edge of her thumb. "It'll be getting dark by then. We'll be out too late."

"Then we go before."

"You won't make it to work on time. It's already quarter to nine."

And she had no way to get to the mall quickly; she'd have to walk. "Just meet me after work, please, Lisanna? We'll look for her and call it off _before_ it gets dark."

"The sun sets at eight."

"That's _two hours._ We'll be back before then."

"Miss Porlyusica isn't going to like that we're wandering around _at all_."

"But we'll be together," Lucy said. "And we'll be back before the curfew." She crossed her fingers under the blankets, just in case she was lying. " _Please."_

Lisanna sighed. "Fine."

"Yes! Thank you." Lucy threw back the covers so she could start getting ready for her day. She showered and put on the jumpsuit she'd bought when she first arrived at Rose's. Eventually, she'd have to go back to the thrift store, her wardrobe was seriously lacking and if the heat spell truly _was_ over, it was going to start getting cold soon.

Lisanna got into the shower after Lucy. Lucy left her to her own devices. Downstairs, there were three girls in the kitchen. Erza's long scarlet hair was in a topknot; she was scowling at the TV on the wall where the picture of a blonde man with a baby face took up the screen. Under his image scrawled the details of his misdeeds. Lucy caught _kidnapping_ and _forcible confinement_. He stood in a courtroom in orange and was about to go into trial. He flipped incessantly through a stack of cards. How he was even allowed those, Lucy didn't know. Maybe he just knew the right people.

Wendy slouched in her chair at the kitchen table, picking apart a piece of toast slathered in drippy peanut butter. It was all over her cheeks and her fingers but she didn't seem to care. Her eyes were red-rimmed. She'd been crying. Lucy gravitated towards her naturally; her way was blocked by Minerva. Her hands were on her hips and there was gloss on her lips and a bit of meanness in her eye.

"I hear you start a new job today, Lucy."

"Yes," Lucy said hesitantly.

"In the mall."

"At Green Earth."

"Isn't that next to Carma?" Minerva named an overpriced store for outdoor equipment.

"I guess."

She pulled a piece of glossed flyer paper out of her back pocket and handed it to Lucy. On it was a red raincoat and boot combo. "Medium for the coat, size seven for the boots."

She thought of the coat in the closet and her heart dropped. She feigned ignorance, though, in case this wasn't what she suspected it was. "If you give me the money I guess I could stop by on my way back—"

"No," Minerva said shortly. "You're going to buy it for me."

No such luck. "I don't have that kind of money." The coat alone was two hundred.

"You should have thought of that before you stole my stuff and ruined it."

"I didn't—"

"Even ask? I know." Minerva pushed the flyer against her chest. Lucy stumbled back. The paper fell between them. "Pick it up so you can show them. I want that one _exactly._ "

Lucy's stomach tingled and it was almost like she was close to the Black Heart again. Terrifying and exciting. She pushed around Minerva, heading for the heart of the kitchen and the coffee. "I'm not doing it."

"You _ruined_ mine. There's sap all over it, and a button is missing. My boots have a hole in the side of the foot and they're _soaked_. It's like you were rolling in the mud like a fucking pig."

Lucy muttered, "Because that's going to make me want to buy you stuff."

"I don't care what you want." Minerva was _right_ behind her. Wendy's eyes widened and Lucy tensed so she was ready, or mostly, Minerva grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. She'd picked up the flyer again and shoved it at Lucy. Lucy pushed her aside.

"Get away from me."

Minerva was surprisingly strong. She pinned Lucy the counter and shoved the flyer in her face with such force, Lucy's cheek stung. "If your fat ass doesn't come back with this you're _not_ coming back into Rose's."

"Get _away_ from me!" Lucy pushed her. Minerva pushed her back. Lucy slapped her. Minerva wailed and suddenly, Lucy's face and scalp burned, though she couldn't say _why,_ it all happened so fast. She attacked back without much skill. Her neck stung and so did her shin. She hit something soft and Minerva hissed.

Then Minerva was suddenly gone and Lucy was free. There was blood on the floor and tension in the air. Wendy broke it with a gasp and Lucy could focus. Erza had Minerva pinned to the floor and punched her as wild as any beast.

Minerva was yelling, Wendy was yelling, Erza was, too. Lucy's own voice was caught in her throat until Miss Porlyusica came around the corner with a broom in her hand and a voice like a banshee, sharp enough to wake the dead. The girls separated.

Miss Porlyusica dealt with it as efficiently as she dealt with anything. She sent Minerva to get cleaned up, put Wendy to work on the floor, told Lucy to get to her job, and took Erza into her office. Lucy strained to hear what was being said when she walked by but aside from the occasional sniffles, she got nothing.

* * *

Mondays were always quiet days in the mall so Lucy had some privacy in the large twenty-stalled washroom. She poked and prodded her cheek. It was swollen. And a little discoloured. Not _badly_ but bad enough. She'd never been hit before and discovered that now that she had, she had a hard time not touching it and not staring at it.

Scarlet passed beneath one of the fluorescent lights and gleamed in the mirror. Lucy met Erza's eyes. She looked docile now; it was difficult to believe she'd pinned Minerva to the ground not even an hour before. Unless, of course, Lucy looked at her hands. Those were bruised and split and swollen.

"I thought this is where I'd find you. Are you okay?" Erza asked.

Lucy prodded her cheek again. "It doesn't really hurt."

"It'll hurt worse when all of the adrenaline wears off."

"You've been in fights before?"

Erza half-smiled. "A time or two."

"Was Miss Porlyusica mad?"

"Is she ever not?" Erza pulled out some concealer from the purse she carried and handed it over. "It might work." Lucy daubed it on and most of the bruise went away. The swelling was still there. "Here. Try this." Erza adjusted Lucy's hair around her face.

"Thank you."

Erza's smile was bare-bones. Her phone started vibrating. She answered a text message. "You're sure you're alright?"

"Yeah. Thanks." She supposed, though Erza had scared her.

"I have to go. Have a good day at work, Lucy. And be careful coming home."

"Thanks," Lucy called at Erza's retreating back.

She spent a little more time fixing her makeup. She'd had no time to put on mascara or lip gloss before she left Rose's. A touch of eyeliner above her eyes. Lucy looked herself over in the mirror with a critical eye. She adjusted her jumpsuit. It was supposed to be a little low cut but this was a lot. A lot of everything. Cleavage. Skin. Her bra wasn't thick enough so she could see the outline of her semi-erect nipples and she hated it. People were going to look and when they looked, they sometimes thought they could touch.

 _Not everyone._ Not. Everyone.

 _Stop. Stop thinking about it._ Otherwise, she'd go insane. _You're fine._

Lights and noise bombarded her when she stepped out into the food court but Erza's scarlet hair was recognizable in the clatter. She was at a table with _J. Fernandez_. He was in civilian clothes and despite his rocky press conference, he was smiling. Leaning into her, even, the tips of his fingers touching her hand. And Erza smiled back. Lucy started towards them, an accusation tangling around the black heart in her mind.

"Lucy!"

She turned and there was Loke, grinning at her from behind a pair of shaded glasses. She checked the clock over the washrooms. She only had five minutes before she needed to start work. She looked back towards the table. Erza was rising. Jellal remained where he was. And she couldn't hunt her down. Loke was waiting. "Sorry. I'm coming!"

"It's okay," Loke said. "I'll walk you there." He fell into step beside her. On the wrong side, of course. Lucy fixed her hair over her face to try to avoid awkward questions. "It looked like you were going to run off on me."

"Sorry. I saw my friend and I wanted to tell her something."

"Do you need to go back?"

Lucy looked back. Erza was at the exit doors now and heading outside. Jellal was still where she'd left him. "No. I'll text her."

"Sure, no problem."

He seemed so nice. "Has the store been busy today?"

"Nah." He told her, "I'm training another guy, too, so that's perfect."

"You hired two new people?" Did he double up in case one of them didn't work out? Did that mean that she'd have to try extra hard to impress him? Because she wasn't off to a great start, almost showing up late, nearly running after Erza when he approached her.

"The Holliday season comes up quick. As soon as September's done, we have to start pushing for Christmas."

"Brutal."

"That's retail." Green Earth's forest green sign lit up the north side of the mall. Lucy liked all of the knickknacks in its glass cases. The faeries sitting on their toadstools, dragons, witches and other mythical creatures.

Loke entered the store first. Lucy was bombarded with the scent of candles and incense. There were three people inside, two customers and a man standing behind the cash. He had long green hair tied back behind his head. His eyes flitted over Lucy before landing on his customer again. He had a gentle way of speaking and a nice smile.

The customers paid and Loke stepped up. "Freed, this is Lucy. You'll be working together Mondays and Wednesdays."

"Nice to meet you," Lucy said. He mimicked her and shook her hand.

"I'll put Lucy on the cash first since you've had the morning. Those boxes in the back need to finish being unpacked," Loke suggested. "Come find me when you're done. Or if you have any questions."

"No problem," Freed responded and disappeared.

"He's shy," Loke said. "He'll warm up, I think."

A tall man with hair so blonde it was almost white walked in, looking at their wares. Loke rolled up the sleeves of his over-the-top white dress shirt. "Have you ever used a cash register before?"

"No."

Loke smiled. "Well, let me show you."

* * *

The day slipped by. Slow and steady and full of things to remember. By the time six o'clock rolled around, Lucy was dizzy from spinning back towards the cash so much. Freed had finished at three, which meant that he hadn't been packing bags for her for the last three hours and she felt his absence though his conversations had been sparse.

"That's a wrap," Loke leaned his hip against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. The cords on his arms weren't as defined as Natsu's but they were definitely there. The suit and the careful and artful style of his hair, the subtle spray of cologne that didn't give her a headache? He cared about his image quite a lot. "What do you think of your new job?"

She straightened the flyers at the cash. "I liked it." It was the most people she'd seen in a long, long time and it felt good to talk to them. She almost didn't feel crazy packing a goat figurine for a guy wearing all black. She almost didn't feel like her father loomed above her, silent and oppressive, the ghost of his hands on her, making her want to tear apart her skin.

"Lucy?" Loke looked concerned.

She blinked. "Huh?"

"You can really get in your own head, huh?"

She flushed. "Sorry. Pardon?"

"I asked if you wanted to head across the street and grab some takeout for your dinner? I'll buy."

As good as it felt not to think about the Black Heart for a few hours, she needed him in her head. "I have other plans." And they waited for her outside of Green Earth in a pair of ripped up jeans and a long-sleeved red and black striped shirt. Lisanna smiled. Her mouth was painted the colour of blackberries and her hair was a nimbus around her head. There was a dark green backpack on her shoulders.

"Sure," Loke started unhooking the slider from the side of the store so he could lock it up for the night. "No problem. Thanks for all your hard work today. You did great. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Definitely," Lucy said. "You don't need any help closing up?"

He shook his head. "I'm good."

"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow." Lucy got her stuff from beneath the counter and met Lisanna out in the hallway. "Ready?"

"No."

Lucy took Lisanna's offered hand and squeezed it. "Well, I am." More than. Now that she had time to think about it, the excitement made her giddy. She couldn't wait to be out there, hunting for Isla Morris. "What's in your backpack?"

"Food, water, scissors and a flashlight."

"What are the scissors for?"

"Protection."

In case she needed to sink them into the Black Heart's ribs. Lucy felt faint.

"Are you okay?"

"Perfect." Better than perfect. She was so excited, she could die, walking out there, finding the Black Heart's first victim, solving the case the police couldn't.

Lisanna grabbed the fringe of Lucy's hair and pulled it back. Lucy looked through her lashes at the purpling bruise. It was starting to show through her concealer and her hair wasn't hiding it as much as it was before. "Wendy said Minerva hit you."

Lucy fixed her hair. "It's fine."

"She also said Erza hit Minerva."

"Yeah."

Lisanna sighed. "Did Miss Porlyusica give you trouble?"

"No." Lucy pushed open the front doors and stepped out into the cooling evening. Her arms were goosebumps already and the sun had just barely started to set. Lisanna got closer to her. That was nice, feeling her body next to hers, her warmth. Lucy wanted to mull over what it meant but there wasn't enough room in her mind for _everything_. So she let it be.

"That's lucky. Minerva was cleaning the oven when I left. Tara told me once that Miss Porlyusica only makes girls do that when she's really, really mad at them." Lisanna stopped at a bench before the crosswalk and shed her bag. She pulled an Orthoimage and a bagel from it. She gave the latter to Lucy and poured over the former. Lucy's stomach rumbled.

"You didn't have to bring me this."

"You probably wouldn't eat tonight if I didn't." The offhanded way she said it was both startling and relieving. She didn't say it like Lucy should be ashamed, she said it like it was fact and fact should be handled like fact. Clinically and precisely.

Lucy ate the side least gobbed with butter first, thinking she'd work her way up to it.

"We'll start here first." Lisanna pointed to the edge of a farm field that bordered a set of apartments. It was in the annexed section of Clover, where the city was expanding rapidly. Those apartments were new. Isla must have paid a good penny to be in them.

"She was going to school so she probably had some kind of bursary," Lucy said aloud, thinking of the digging she'd done the previous night. "And the restaurant she worked at was close to the college." Which was also within walking distance of her apartment. "We printed Orthos of that area as well, right?"

"I have everything in a ten-kilometer radius."

They were going to be at this forever if they didn't get lucky. "Remember when you said sometimes, the things you think about come true?"

Lisanna's cheeks reddened. She didn't look at Lucy when she put everything but one Ortho away. "I can't control it."

"You haven't even tried."

"I have before. It doesn't work."

"Well, do you feel good about going to this farm?"

"No, I feel terrible about it."

Her words gave Lucy chills.

"Come on, the sun's setting," Lisanna said and crossed the street. Lucy dropped the napkin her bagel came in into the garbage and followed.

Walking was the slowest way to go. Lucy would have spent what little was left of her cash on a cab to get there quicker but she was afraid of leaving a trail. Or throwing the Black Heart off if he was watching. She _wanted_ him to know that she was onto him. When he was nervous, he'd make mistakes, she'd wager, and when he made mistakes, he'd get caught.

The city fell away behind them and the edges of urban sprawl took over. Buildings cropped out of forested areas looking out-of-place, apartments and townhouses were nestled in between farm fields. "Do you think he lives in one of these?"

"Yes," Lisanna said.

Lucy was again overrun by chills.

"Do you think he's watching us?"

"He's probably been watching for a while."

Was she just being paranoid and dire? Or was this another Lisanna-knows situation?

Lucy watched the road and houses with a critical eye. None stood out more than the other.

"This way." Lisanna cut from the main road towards a farm field. There was a fringe of cedars that ran the ditch and once they passed those, they were out of sight of the road and in front of a small pond ringed by cattails and the occasional cedar. The sun set the puffy clouds on the horizon ablaze. Scarlet and russet and marigold took the sinister grounds ahead of them and gave them a picturesque quality. She could be standing on the fringe of reality, about to peek behind a veil that hid something grotesque.

"It's beautiful here."

"That's where she worked." Lisanna pointed west across the field to the top of a white-roofed and squat building. "And there's the lot where she went missing." She pointed to the north, where, just barely, Lucy could see the black tarmac of the industrial lot. "And…" She moved her finger just a little east. "That's the apartment building she lived in." The farmer's field was central to them all. But it wasn't _close,_ exactly.

"He's never dragged his other victims very far _before_ , did he? So why the first one? Why not leave her where she could be found?"

Lisanna's expression was blank. "I don't pretend I know what he does with them."

 _That's your thing._ She didn't say it but Lucy knew she meant it. And she didn't care. "If she _is_ here, nothing about this is the same as the others. Who was she to the Black Heart? A friend? A girlfriend? A friend he _wanted_ to be his girlfriend?"

"Or maybe she was no one?"

"No. All of this is methodical. It's planned. He rages when he kills them, but even that has a note of thought in it. He does the same thing every time. Every time. Even as he's cutting them open and taking their hearts, _rushing_ , he knows what he's doing." Compulsive. Everything he did was compulsive.

"Or you don't actually know anything about him and you're totally wrong."

Lisanna wasn't usually so pessimistic. At least, not in Lucy's experience. "What's wrong?"

"I'm just uncomfortable." She stepped over a mound of dirt. "It's creepy being out here, knowing that Isla was taken from just over there. Doesn't it bother you?"

Lucy chose to take the question rhetorically. What was the point of lying to seem normal? Lisanna already knew she was strange. "Do you think Isla meant the pond when she said she was in someplace deep, dark and damp?"

"That would be _soaking,_ not damp," Lisanna said.

But it was the best option she had. She got close to the pond. The ground squished and soaked into her toes. She hated that feeling but loved this, the anticipation. _Do you think you're going to look in and see her?_ She was horrified by the prospect but still marched into the cattails wearing her determination on her sleeve. Lisanna crunched in behind her more slowly and more careful.

"We're trespassing."

"You're the one that stepped on the property first." It seemed Lisanna had forgotten.

"I know. I don't know what I was thinking. It's so light out still."

"I thought you didn't want to be out in the dark?"

"I _don't,_ " Lisanna emphasised.

"The farmer can't see us, anyway." They were protected now; the cattails were thick here. Lucy avoided a hole in the ground left by a cow hoof. It was so strange to have urban and rural side-by-side. Magnolia was all city all the time. Its graffitied walls and garbage-choked streets made it seem rather tame in comparison to this strange place.

"What are we looking for?"

"Honestly?"

"Yes." Lisanna sounded like she was going to cry.

"A body."

"There's no body here."

Lucy looked back over her shoulder. Lisanna was clutching her elbows and standing in a puddle two inches deep, and she looked certain. Lucy was also certain. "There's something here." And she was going to find it.

More determined than before, she did a round of the pond, slashing through cattails and tromping over orange discarded cedar leaves. Nothing and more nothing. She wasn't going to give up, though. If she could find nothing in the farmer's field, she'd go where she should have first.

Lisanna burst out of the reeds with cattail fluff in her now-messy hair. "What are you doing?"

"Going to the parking lot."

"Are you crazy? We're going to have the cops called on us."

"Then I'll say sorry."

"Trespassing—"

"They're not going to charge me." The world couldn't be _that_ unjust.

Lisanna fell into a sulky silence. How did you argue with the irrational?

Lucy was breathing heavily by the time they passed by a well on the north edge of the farmer's field. She used its crumbling brick to keep herself up when her ankle twisted in the ditch on the other side, hidden by canary-reed grass. She broke through the thick, taupe stalks and found herself in a ditch, facing a hill of short, green grass.

The parking lot was lit with only one working lamp. It shone hunter-orange light down on black and degraded tarmac and glittering glass and white cigarette butts. She could practically _feel_ Isla Morris in this place. She was here because…

"It would have been easier to walk through here to get to her apartment." Faster. She wouldn't have had to go around the block, she could just cut through the field and be at her back door.

She walked to the west side of the lot where Isla would have come from. Someone had used snips to cut a hole in the chain-link fence. It'd been peeled back and tied with a piece of rubber-coated wire. Someone frequented this spot. Or multiple someones.

There was graffiti on the wall. Someone had etched,

 _Dark, dark, dark, dark_ and an eye that had been blacked out. The pupil was red. The lines used to make it were jagged.

Lucy touched it, expecting to feel _something._ Lisanna took her hand away from it. "Don't."

"It's only art." _His_ art.

Dark. Dark. Dark. Dark.

Lucy shook off Lisanna's hand and moved to the other side of the wall. There she found the other half to the mural. This eye was almond-shaped and grey. Much less menacing, and more neatly constructed. It was also his. She touched it and tried to see what he did. He was divided. Two things at once. She moved back to the darker eye. She wasn't interested in the man that had control. She wanted the killer. It was almost like he was looking at her.

"I'm getting closer," she told him. "I'm going to peel back the rock you're hiding under and you're going to be mine." He wasn't going to take anyone else away and he was going to suffer for the harm he'd already caused.

Lisanna backed into the chain-link fence and something clattered to the ground. Lucy spun around and found the culprit. It was a film canister from a manual camera. Her heart throbbed in her ears. She scurried forward like a spider and scraped her knees on the ground to get it. It had moisture on the plastic. It'd been out in the storm. But it was left for _her_. Like the camera in the park had been.

A car swung into the parking lot and Lucy's heart beat harder. She turned with the canister clutched to her chest and looked into the bright headlights. She could see nothing. Lisanna stood beside her with her hand shading her eyes. The car pulled right up to them after a moment and the lights turned off. The window went down and all Lucy could think was, _this is him. This is the Black Heart. Lisanna was right. He_ was _watching us. And now he's come to…_ To kill her? To mock her? She'd found what he _wanted_ her to find, not what she was _really_ hunting for. Facts. Proof. Condemnable evidence. All she had was undeveloped film and it could have been ruined for all she knew.

"Hey."

The word didn't make sense until Lisanna said, "Hey, Natsu." Then Lucy saw that the car was cherry red. Natsu _was_ behind the wheel. There was someone beside him. She thought at first it was Happy but his build was dissimilar. He was thicker through the shoulders than Happy and his hair was messier. Natsu opened the door and got out and with the interior light bouncing off his passenger's sharp features, she knew immediately without introduction that she was seeing his brother.

Natsu asked, "What are you doing out here?"

"We're waiting for Ogra. What are you doing?" Lisanna's lie threw Lucy for a loop. Who was Ogra and _why_ were they supposedly waiting for him? Lisanna wouldn't look at her. Lucy put the canister into her pocket and went with it.

"Same." He looked back into his car. His brother's elbow was on the windowsill and he scrolled through his phone with a bored expression. When Natsu turned back, he looked more determined. "Did you walk here?"

"Yes. Are you going to offer us a drive?" Lisanna asked.

"Yeah. Of course. Get in."

Lucy was left standing on her own as Lisanna plopped into the car through the passenger's rear door. She leaned forward around the seat and spoke to Natsu's brother, hand held out like she could make friends with anyone, anywhere. He took a moment to drop his phone but he shook her hand and smiled a smile that didn't meet his eyes.

"Looks like Christmas came early," Lucy said.

"You were right. I did want to see him." Natsu shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked a pebble across the ground. It hit the eye mural and skated under the chain-link. "Is it weird if I invite you over to hang out with us?"

The canister was a cylindrical bomb in her pocket. She needed those photos developed. And Natsu was the guy to do it for her. She figured it'd be an easier pill for him to swallow if she spent a few hours actually enjoying his company rather than just using him to develop whatever dirty secrets the Black Heart had left for her. "I think that'd be fun."

He turned the full force of his boyish grin on her. "Great."

Chain-link rattled as a man stepped through the hole and into the parking lot. He was so tall and so thick, he almost looked comical. Natsu greeted him the same way Lucy imagined he greeted everyone, with a show of teeth. "Hey, man."

Orga looked at Lucy and in the car. "Party tonight, Dragneel?"

"Zeref's in town."

"Lucky me." Lucy understood Orga better when Natsu handed him some cash and he fished in his pocket for a baggy of weed. "You know where to find me when you want more."

Natsu looked at Lucy expectantly. She'd never bought drugs in her life and didn't know what to say. Of course, Orga didn't know about Lisanna's lie and barely spared her another look as he exited the parking lot again.

"Didn't you want some?"

"I just remembered, I'm trying to save up for a new phone," Lucy lied badly.

"Oh. Okay." Natsu was easygoing and didn't pry anymore. "This is plenty anyway. If you want."

She'd never had any before. Trying to make the decision to experiment made her feel as nervous as she had when she was standing on top of the hill and Natsu was holding the cart for her.

"No pressure."

"I know. I've just—I've never tried it. This was Lisanna's idea." If Lisanna could lie, so could she.

Natsu looked surprised. "Okay. That's cool. Well, we can go back to the apartment and if you decide you want some, that's fine, and if you don't, that's fine, too."

"Sure."

Lisanna slid across the backseat and opened the door. She was smiling like she hadn't since they left the mall. She was much more comfortable here, navigating these situations. Lucy would rather deal with the Black Heart. "Did you get it?"

"Natsu did."

"Let's go, then." She already knew that Natsu had invited them over, just like she already knew Lucy had said yes.


	13. Chapter 13

The TV was going when they came into Natsu's apartment and the original Spiderman cartoon played. Lucy could sing every word from the opener and did under her breath. It reminded her of when she was small before she knew she hated her father, before her mother died. Before she had a twisted little book of murders and murderers and an obsession with the dead. Before she saw dead girls and chased maniacs and hunted for their crime scenes.

It reminded her that life before had been hollow.

Natsu threw off his jacket and Zeref mimicked him. Lucy went the opposite way and rubbed warmth into her arms.

Natsu asked, "Do you want a sweater?"

"I'm okay." Wearing his clothes felt more intimate with an audience, somehow.

Zeref got a beer from the fridge and then sat at the end of the couch. "Can I have one?" Lisanna asked.

"Go ahead," Natsu answered. "Did you want one, Lucy?"

"No, thanks." She was always thinking about the calories.

"She can have some of mine." Lisanna returned from the kitchen with a green beer bottle in hand. She linked her arm through Lucy's and, though she'd never been there before, invited herself onto the couch. They were hip-to-hip, Lucy at the end and Lisanna pressing against her. "Here." She put the cool beer bottle in Lucy's hand.

"I shouldn't…" Lucy hedged.

Lisanna looked at Lucy in that daring way she had. She was so cautious when it came to murder and mayhem but here, surrounded by mundane things? She was bold and Lucy thought they were going to get into a lot of trouble together. And she thought she wanted that. She took a little sip of the beer. Lisanna took it back and put her lips where Lucy's had been. She caught Lucy staring at her mouth and grinned mischievously.

"How long are you in town for, Zeref?" Lisanna asked.

He shrugged noncommittally. Natsu said, "Just a couple of days."

"Are you staying here?"

Zeref wasn't much of a talker. Natsu answered again. "For a bit. He has a friend in town he's going to see, right Zeref?"

"If she's around."

"Your girlfriend?" Lisanna prodded.

Zeref quarter-smiled; it didn't reach his eyes. "No."

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

"No."

Lisanna's smile got a little bit wider. Lucy didn't like that it was turned on Zeref or that he didn't seem to appreciate it very much. She couldn't think of a way to bring her back around, though. Lisanna was leaning into Zeref, asking him more things and not letting him get away without an answer and it seemed like he actually liked the attention.

Natsu came to the table with a bong and a lighter and knelt on the ground in front of Lucy and Lisanna. His knees were against Lucy's toes. His fingers worked through the green bud proficiently, tearing it up and crushing it and packing it into the bong neatly. He watched Lucy while he did it, looking between her and Lisanna, noting their closeness and their comfort and probably a hundred other little things. Lucy felt exposed but also fleetingly bold. She adjusted so her legs were pushing into Natsu's side.

Natsu asked, "What did you get up to today?"

"I started my new job," Lucy said.

"Tell me about it."

She brushed over the details. He seemed interested even though she thought it was drab. "What did you do?"

"Picked Zeref up from the train station, drove around Clover for a bit, caught up."

"Do you go back to work soon?" she asked, thinking of the undeveloped pictures in her pocket.

"Tomorrow."

"Can I come see you there?"

His smile widened, though it was wary. "Of course you can."

Lucy left it at that; she didn't want to wipe the cheer from his eyes.

"Burn it," Zeref said from the other end of the couch. Lisanna was closer to him then she'd been before and smiling in a way Lucy had only ever seen turned on her. She took Lisanna's beer from her and drank more of it. _That_ brought Lisanna's attention back to her. Finally. She squeezed Lucy's hand warmly.

Natsu lit the bong and passed it to Lucy. She still didn't know if she wanted any or not and handed it to Lisanna. She didn't have as many qualms. She took in a big inhale and gave it to Zeref and they went around again.

The second time Lucy passed it up, Lisanna let it go, but the third? She said, "This is another edge, Lucy." Another way to feel alive, another way to feel daring, like looking at the Black Heart but safer. Neither Natsu nor Zeref knew what they talked about, nor were they listening, they were laughing about something Lucy missed. Lisanna dared, "Stand on it."

_And look over._

She wanted to but she wasn't brave enough on her own. Lisanna saw it. She lit the bong again and breathed in deeply. She touched Lucy's cheek and brought their mouths together. Lucy thought it was for a kiss and almost panicked but Lisanna only breathed smoke into her mouth. It didn't choke her going down, it was softer than that.

Lisanna pulled back and grinned. The next time the bong came around, she didn't have to encourage Lucy to try again. She was waiting for the press of Lisanna's mouth on hers. She had Natsu's attention this time and liked the way he watched them.

The sixth time around, her head was humming but Natsu leaned in to take Lisanna's place and she wanted to let him. The world was so soft around her; she loved it when he _did_ turn to kissing her. She got caught up in the way his lips moved against hers, insistent but gentle, his tongue. He tasted like mint gum.

Calloused fingers went into her hair so he could kiss her deeper. She didn't panic because Lisanna was beside her. Their hands were still tangled together.

Zeref snorted at the end of the couch and stood. Lucy heard him go for the balcony. She pushed him out of her mind completely just as soon as she heard the door close and a lighter flick.

Natsu, too, recognized their privacy and got to his knees to kiss her better. This sensation was the only thing she could focus on. Marijuana made everything else fade into the background. She even had to remind herself to breathe.

Fingers moved from her hair to her neck where they stayed and drew circles. Lisanna turned in her seat; she gripped Lucy's thigh tightly. There was a lot of sensation there; a lot of meaning. She was aware of Lisanna like she was aware of herself like she was aware of Natsu. All of her nerve endings were on fire. It was almost too much. And it was not enough.

Natsu pulled back. Lucy felt his absence for only a millisecond. Lisanna got on her knees and her mouth was in Natsu's place. Her kiss was more precise and easily drew the want out in Lucy. It washed over her like a great wave and she was drowning.

Lisanna made a soft noise Lucy hadn't heard her make before. She peeked between her lashes. Lisanna was holding Natsu's wrist; he was palming her breast. His thumb swiped up over her nipple and she made the noise again. All of the blood rushed to Lucy's head. She needed air and there was none.

Lisanna moved her hand from the top of Lucy's thigh to the inside. Electricity shot through Lucy's limbs. "Wait."

Lisanna kept going. She brushed over her centre and Lucy shuddered.

"Wait," Lucy said with more authority. "Wait."

Lisanna pulled back. "What's wrong?"

Natsu took his hand away from Lisanna. He looked ashamed. "Are you okay?"

Lucy didn't know the answer to that question. She needed to get up, though. The urge was undeniable. "Excuse me."

Lisanna watched her rise with her lip pressed between her teeth. Natsu looked at the ground. There were a lot of thoughts going through his mind; Lucy could practically see him thumbing through the right words to say. She let him stew in them because she didn't know what to say, either.

The balcony door opened before Lucy could touch it and she was enveloped by the cool newly fall air. She stepped out onto the narrow slab of concrete that looked out over East Mill Park. From here, she lorded over the street, the cars rushing back and forth, people working later into the dinner hour, the hotdog stands and their owners calling to pedestrians. No one seemed very interested, though. They wore their unease in their mouths and in the rigid straightness of their shoulders.

Zeref didn't take a break from looking at it all when Lucy came to his side. He tucked his cigarette into the corner of his mouth and closed the door, leaving Natsu and Lisanna inside. Lucy leaned back against the railing and peered through the sheer off-yellow drapes. They were now sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the couch. Lisanna was talking and Natsu had one hand shoved through his hair.

Zeref said, "He's dumb with some things but he's not a bad guy."

"I know," Lucy said.

"He likes you."

She side-eyed him. "Are you saying that because he's your brother?"

"I wouldn't bad talk him."

Lucy snorted. "Then why would I believe you?"

Zeref grinned lazily; he looked a lot like Natsu then. They had the same roguish smile. "Because you don't know if I'm a liar yet."

Lucy grinned despite herself. It felt like a lifetime had passed between that moment and the couch. She sat on the deck chair beside him. The white plastic flexed beneath her weight; it'd been out in the sun for too many days, rotting. "Not yet."

"He really is the best of us, though. He's going to be someone." Not even someone big or someone famous, his tone said. Just someone decent. Someone kind and someone generous. Someone Zeref was proud to call his brother.

Lucy was curious and loose-tongued. "What happened between you?"

Zeref rolled his head on his shoulders. His eyes, the black pits, dug into her, and she saw something familiar in them. Danger, she thought, there was a world of danger in his gaze and it reminded her of when she was staring at the Black Heart's mural. One black, dead eye. One full of life. A man divided. The deep dark and the light. "What's the worst thing you've ever done to a person?"

His question took her aback; she'd never been asked anything like that before. "I cut in front of someone in line at the splash park."

"That's the most selfish thing you've ever done. Now, what's the meanest?" His eyes promised her tit for tat. If she told him, he'd tell her, and his secret was worth knowing. The balcony fell away, the city, Natsu and Lisanna inside.

"I didn't tell my father no." _No_. A simple thing. _No._ She did not want something and never said it, so he believed the answer was _yes._

Zeref was astute and understood what she meant, she could see it in his eyes. He didn't judge her; the Black Heart wouldn't, either. They were cut from the same cloth and he didn't try to hide it. "Sometimes, I forget."

"Forget what?"

"How to be me."

"What does that mean?"

His fingers clenched and his knuckles turned white. Lucy's stomach flopped, though he hadn't made a move against her. "Sometimes, I get so mad I stop thinking and I stop feeling and I need to see red."

Her lungs felt small. "Oh."

"Do I scare you?"

"No."

"Not the girl obsessed with a serial killer," he said lazily.

"How do you know about that?"

"My brother talks."

 _Oh. Did_ Natsu think she was obsessed with a killer? What did he think about it?

Zeref slouched more in his seat. "You like to be afraid, Lucy."

Funny, Lisanna had said something very similar. "Why would you say that?"

"Natsu told me when you found the camera you developed those pictures before giving it to the police. A normal person wouldn't have."

Her heart throbbed in her chest. "He doesn't want to hurt me."

Zeref's eyebrow went up. "He's murdered six women."

"Five." That the media was aware of, not including Isla Morris.

"Sure. Five. What makes you better than them?"

Lucy said, "He watches me. And he left me a heart. In the forest yesterday."

Zeref flicked away his spent cigarette and immediately lit another. "How do you know it was for you?"

"My initial was on it."

"L?"

"Yes."

"There are other girls with names beginning with L."

"It was for me," Lucy said positively. Who else would it be for? She was watching him and he was watching her and eventually, they would stop playing this game. Eventually, she would catch up with him and he would have nowhere to hide.

Zeref puffed on his cigarette thoughtfully. When he spoke again, he'd changed directions. "Did you like the mural?"

Lucy said, "I hated it."

"Me, too."

"It reminds me of you."

Zeref grinned ferociously.

"Why do you like that?"

"Imagine spending your entire life with people ignoring that one thing that's wrong with you. And then in walks this unassuming girl who loves to be scared of people like you."

"Are you saying you're like the Black Heart?"

The balcony door opened and Lisanna was there, stealing away Zeref's answer. The inside light made a halo out of her white-blonde hair. "Natsu said he could drive us back now."

She didn't want to go yet. She still had things to say to Zeref. She wanted his answer. Needed it. "Is he sober?"

"He says yes."

"But is he _lying_?"

"Natsu isn't a liar," Zeref said. "Not like me."

"You said you don't lie."

"I'm compulsive." He took out a green bottle of pills and shook them in her face. She was even more confused now. All that talk about the Black Heart, was he just leading her on? She searched his eyes and didn't find an answer.

"Come on, Lucy," Lisanna said. "Before we're caught."

 _And you lose your spot at Rose's._ There was time to dig for answers from Zeref later _._ Though it didn't feel that way. Lucy stood and fixed her jumpsuit.

Inside, Natsu was getting his shoes on at the front door. He still would barely glance at Lucy.

"Don't be out too late." Zeref had followed them in. He looked less sinister in the light, leaning against the back of the couch, Natsu's brother, comfortable in his brother's house.

"Yeah," Natsu said.

"And don't wander. Cops are everywhere."

"I'll be back in a few," was Natsu's response. He tore open the door and hustled down the stairs. Lisanna followed him out and Lucy came afterwards. She walked with her eyes on the steps, replaying her and Zeref's conversation over in her mind. Her thoughts were slow as molasses and she had a hard time deciding what was real and what was fake and the _specifics_ of things were difficult to narrow in on.

She was so involved; she ran straight into Lisanna at the bottom of the steps. She'd stopped dead and was looking out the window. The man with the tattoo and the partially-shaved head was back, sitting on the curb out front. He smoked his cigarette and stared Lisanna down.

"Did you forget something?" Natsu was holding open the front door, looking back at them.

Lisanna straightened her shoulders and took a big step forward. "No." Her head was held high when she got outside. Lucy looked between her and Tattoo. She could practically taste the tension, though neither said a thing.

Natsu had to unlock the passenger's door and the back door separately and did it before he got in. In the brief moment Lucy had where it was just her and Lisanna in the car, she asked, "What was that about?"

Lisanna said a curt, "We'll talk after."

Natsu got in and it was too late to pump her for any more information. "Where do you guys need to go?"

Lisanna looked out the window again; the curb was empty now, the man had disappeared. "Do you know where the shelter is?"

"Rose's?"

" _Lisanna_."

Lucy was ignored. "There, but just bring us to the end of the road. Miss Porlyusica's mean."

Natsu was good at reigning in his surprise. "I know. She used to be the nurse at my high school. She retired my first year but I saw her a lot."

"Why?" Lucy asked without much consideration for his privacy.

"I got into a lot of fights," Natsu said vaguely.

Lucy thought of Zeref and his need to see red and understood well enough now.

Natsu put on an indie rock station and that was the last of the conversation until they pulled up to the end of the road. Lisanna got out right away. "Wait—" Lucy said to her closing door.

"She's not going far," Natsu said. And he was right. She leaned against the hood and played with the hem of her shirt, waiting patiently for Natsu to say whatever it was he was going to say. He turned in his seat. Streetlamp light outlined his cheek and his jaw, sloped down his nose and tangled in his hair. He was very good looking, especially when he was contrite. "I'm sorry about earlier. I don't know what I was thinking. I—"

Lucy rested her hand on his cheek. He got quiet so she brushed her lips over his and kept them there for a count of three. Natsu's eyes were hooded when she pulled back and his fingers were seeking hers. She let him grab her hand briefly and squeezed. "See me tomorrow?"

His eyes opened completely. "Yes."

"I'm done work at three."

"I'm not until five."

"That's perfect." She could sit on her pictures for a little while longer. "I'll come to Henry's."

"You shouldn't be out by yourself. You could wait in the mall and—"

"It's fine." Black Heart wouldn't bother her for a while yet, she was sure of it.

Natsu squeezed her fingers again. "Just text me, okay? We can figure something else out. Zeref could walk you to the store or something."

As if Zeref was the safer bet. And, of course, she had no phone. Lucy smiled anyway. Sometimes it was easier. "I'll see you tomorrow." She kissed him again so there was no mistake, she was not mad, and then threw open the door. Lisanna bounced on the balls of her feet on the curb, looking left and right like she was expecting a killer to spring from the deep dark and take them away.

Maybe he was there, watching and waiting, shadowed from the spread of Natsu's headlights. Or maybe he was home, thinking about Lucy and her procured pictures, scheming about their next encounter.

* * *

Rose's was dark. Lisanna didn't even try the front door, it would only attract unwanted attention. She pulled the recycling bins close to the fence and clambered up. Her feet slid on the top of the slick wood; she caught herself on the eavestrough before she could fall. Her ribs smacked on the roof, though, reminding her again that not all was well.

"Shit, are you okay?" Lucy whispered concernedly.

"I'm okay." Winded, but okay.

She waited at the top while Lucy followed her up and climbed into their bedroom first. Lucy closed up after them. She still didn't feel comfortable climbing the fence and used her questions to distract from her shakiness. "Who was that guy in front of Natsu's apartment?"

Lisanna couldn't find a good reason to lie and miserably admitted, "My boyfriend. I think he was waiting for me."

"Then why didn't he say anything?"

"He's mad at me."

"Why?"

She was trying not to pry but Lisanna knew that curious gleam in her eye. She wanted the dirt and Lisanna wanted to be rid of it. "He found me here yesterday. He kissed me." And touched her. She _loved_ the way Bickslow touched her. his touch was always a bit like riding the edge of a violent, manic storm. He was unpredictable at best. Especially when he got to laughing. "And I told him it wasn't okay anymore."

"What did he say?"

Lisanna lifted her shoulder. "He probably doesn't believe me." Or hadn't, until he watched her come out of Natsu's apartment. What had he pieced together? He liked it when he was watching her with other people but only when it was people he was okay with. He hadn't approved Natsu or Lucy. And he probably didn't like them just based on that. Bickslow liked control.

Lucy started looking for her nightgown. "I saw him the other day when I was searching for Natasha Green. He was sitting on the curb where we did the cart racing."

That could have been coincidence but Lisanna didn't think so. Bickslow was as methodical as he was insane.

Lucy asked, "Should we tell Miss Porlyusica? Or the detective? Dreyar?" Not Fernandez, because she was still suspicious of him.

"No." Lisanna didn't want to call the police on him, she wasn't sure she hated the attention. Or how attentive Lucy was just then. She knew it was bad but she wanted it.

"If he's bothering you—"

"He hasn't done anything yet. And I don't think he will, either. He's just… feeling out the situation." She hoped.

"I guess it's up to you, but we should do something before it's too late."

"Just give it a day. If he's still lurking around, we'll go to the police."

"Okay." Lucy had found her nightgown. She flopped with it down onto her bed and started brushing her hair out with her fingers.

"Can we talk about what happened tonight?" Lisanna poked.

"If we don't talk about it now, are you going to corner me about it later?"

"Realistically, if we don't talk about it now, we'll never talk about it and it'll likely drive a wedge between us. We'll probably stop being friends and I don't want that."

Lucy puffed out her cheeks. "Me, neither."

"Good." She liked Lucy. "I'm sorry I pushed you into that situation and then intruded when you and Natsu were having a moment. I shouldn't have done that. It made you uncomfortable and Natsu really likes you and I hope I didn't ruin it for you. I want you to be happy."

Lucy's fingers were two tight balls in her nightgown. "It wasn't what you think," she blurted. "It was…"

Lisanna waited for her to continue but Lucy seemed stuck. "You need to tell me what you're thinking."

"I think I liked it."

"Okay."

"I just wasn't expecting to. You know?"

She did. She'd been in that position herself. Bickslow had been more confident than she had, though, and hadn't let her run off to figure things out for herself. "You're okay now, though?"

Lucy took a moment to square her shoulders and sit up straighter. Her expression was fiercely determined. "Kiss me."

Lisanna raised both her eyebrows. "You want me to kiss you?"

"Yes." She sounded more definitive. Confident.

"Okay." Lisanna sat beside her and did things the slow way regardless, just in case Lucy was confused.

Her kiss was close-mouthed and chaste; Lucy's eyes fluttered open when she pulled away. "Have you done this before?"

"Kissed?"

"A girl."

"Well, I kissed _you._ " Lisanna smiled tentatively, trying to keep everything light.

"I mean for real. Like, been with a girl." Moonlight touched Lucy's unsmiling lips. She was good for laughter but sombreness suited her well.

"I told you my boyfriend liked to watch me with other people," Lisanna said truthfully. "Boys and girls." The first girl she ever kissed was a blue-haired misfit with a pouty mouth more sombre than Lucy's. Juvia Lockser had piercings in her lips and in intimate spots on her body. She had been sensual and moody; a perfect storm. Lisanna still thought about her the same way she thought she'd always think about Bickslow. Reverently; Juvia wasn't like anyone else Lisanna ever knew before. Sometimes, in Lisanna's memory, she didn't even feel real.

"And you liked being with them?"

"Sometimes better than I liked being with him." They were both good in their own ways, girls were softer and more physical, every touch had a purpose, the boys she liked, bossier and bold.

Lucy leaned in and kissed her again. It was different this time, Lisanna hadn't initiated it so it felt more out of her control. She liked when Lucy ordered, "Touch me," just like they practised.

Every nerve ending was screaming at her as she ran her hands up Lucy's arms to her shoulders and then down her front. Lucy lifted into her fingers and made the contact Lisanna hadn't quite yet. The tips of her breasts were already mostly hard. A stroke and a pinch and she was gasping and wriggling, trying to have more. Lisanna kept a light hand. It was often better.

"How's that?"

Lucy put her hands behind her back and pulled at the zipper keeping her jumpsuit high. The fabric rolled over her shoulders. She pushed it past her breasts and down around her belly button. She wasn't thinking about what she looked like then, or how much was too much or too little. Lisanna decided she liked her like this best.

Lucy pushed her bra down as well. She may have missed a few meals but she was still heavy up top. Her bra had dug into her skin and left marks. She was beautiful. A real girl.

Lucy leaned back on the bed. "Touch me."

Lisanna adjusted so she was more on Lucy's lap and filled her hands. She stopped thinking about Bickslow. She stopped thinking about her blunder with Natsu. Lucy's skin was smooth and warm.

Lucy preferred being kissed. Her breath hitched and goosebumps exploded over her skin as Lisanna locked her mouth around the tip of her breast. She leaned back further on her elbows. Lisanna touched up her bare legs to the hem of her jumpsuit, and then higher, and higher again, to the junction of her legs. Lucy held her breath. Lisanna used her thumb to rub and all that breath came out.

She worked harder today than she did the first time she touched Lucy here, pushing Lucy back on the bed and daring to go inside her clothing. Her panties were nearly too tight. Lisanna minded less than Lucy did, getting her fingers over top of the material first and pressing small circles into her body.

Lucy moaned and inched down further. Lisanna bit her tongue, reminding herself that slower was better, always, even when Lucy made it seem like she was impatient.

Red cheeks and short breaths, tensed fingers, quiet moans because she was shy. Lisanna put Lucy in a place where she was leaving her nail marks in her arms and then she nudged aside Lucy's panties and touched her for real.

Lucy was warm and wet and bowed like a taut bow. She was easy to make come and though she was quiet she didn't make Lisanna feel under appreciated. She kissed her hard and thoroughly and even braved a caress, touching the edge of Lisanna's breast. Lisanna let her explore. That in itself was exciting. It was nice being the first girl Lucy had ever touched and one of the first people she'd _wanted_ to touch in a while.

Lisanna took her shirt off over her head; Lucy stared. Her chest rose and fell quickly.

"It's alright still?" Lisanna asked.

"Keep going," Lucy responded.

Lisanna backed off her and discarded her bra. She then took off her jeans and underwear, too, so she was completely naked. Lucy didn't ask for it but Lisanna turned for her just like Juvia had turned for _her_ the first time Bickslow had introduced them, and let Lucy look at all of her.

Lucy's lip was back between her teeth and she was clutching her turned-down jumper. She was not yet brave enough that expression said. That was okay

Just like Juvia had, Lisanna came back to the bed. She put one leg on either side of Lucy's and put Lucy's hands on her hips.

"Watch," she told her.

First, she ran her hands up the insides of her thighs and then brushed her fingers over her body. Like Lucy, she was wet. She knew touching herself would feel good but she hadn't expected the thrill she'd she got with Lucy watching her.

Lisanna grabbed her own breasts and mostly closed her eyes. She focused on sensation. If her breaths hitched, Lucy's fingers tightened on her hips. If she leaned back and sighed, Lucy moved with her so she was never very far. And when she orgasmed, Lucy tensed like it had been her, not Lisanna.

The curtain of night stifled all awkwardness. Lisanna gave it a moment before rising. She cleaned up and changed in the bathroom. Lucy was wiggling her nightgown down over her large hips when Lisanna came back. She met Lisanna's eye only briefly before retreating into the washroom.

Lisanna flopped into her bed and crossed her arms behind her head. She decided then she didn't regret making Natsu touch her. It had been awkward after and would be still but if she hadn't, Lucy never would have let this happen.

A sliver of light slithered across the floor as Lucy exited. She got beneath her blankets on her side. "I'm seeing Natsu tomorrow." Like it was an admission. Or she was daring Lisanna to challenger her on it. She wouldn't.

"Good."

"And I'm going to get him to develop those pictures."

She'd forgotten about those. "They should go to the police."

"Maybe, if they were left by the Black Heart," Lucy spoke nonchalantly but they both knew better. That canister was left for a girl with the initial L.

 _So you'll have to give them to Detective Dreyar again_. And embarrass herself a little more. Just what she wanted. But she wanted Lucy flirting with a psychopath even less. She didn't understand the danger she was in.

Maybe neither of them did.


	14. Chapter 14

The clock's big hand edged from twelve fifty-nine to one. Lucy breathed in the scent of her second-last hour. It smelled like baby vomit and bubble wrap. Freed was by the back shelves cleaning up the former, Lucy had her hands in the latter. She gladly conceded when he offered to take the worst of the jobs, greeting people as they came in with a smile and an apology for the scent. The latest was a man in a baseball hat and sweater who barely looked at her. He was followed shortly after by a woman in high heels.

Lucy put on one of her practised smiles and felt it freeze on her face.

"Is that the look you give every customer that comes in? It's scary." Minerva looked a little bit like Cruella De Vil in a fur-lined… _thing._ Was that a dress? Was it a jumpsuit? It was fucking ugly.

Lucy forced her smile into something smoother. "Do you need help finding something, Minerva? Candles, maybe? A cross to excise a demon?"

"A witch jibe, hilarious," she said drably and made a circle of the store. She came back to Lucy in under a minute with a large, gaudy statue. "I'll take this, please."

"Okay."

"Gift wrapped."

Lucy got out newspaper and was just lifting the statue onto it when Minerva's eyes turned slitted and mean, like a dog's just before it bit. She swiped the statue out of Lucy's hand and it smashed on the floor into chunks about an inch wide.

Lucy was too surprised to speak.

Loke poked his head out of the back room. "What happened?"

"Your employee just _ruined_ my niece's birthday present." Minerva was a natural actress, nailing looking both shocked _and_ disrespected.

Loke sighed and came out to assess the damage. There was no way to fix it. "Did you want to choose something else? We have a wall of similar statues."

"She asked for that one, _exactly_. She's been talking about it for months."

"Well, we can order you a new one—"

"When will it be here?" Minerva asked.

"By Friday, probably."

"That's too late. Her birthday's _today_."

Loke was a pleaser. "Just take a look around, Miss, I'm sure you can find something—"

Minerva flipped her frown into a smile. "Don't worry about it, my backup plan was this Baret I saw on my way here. Thanks, anyway. Sorry for the trouble. Hopefully, that doesn't cost you too much," she squinted at Lucy's nametag, "Lucy."

"Goodbye, _Minerva_." Even Lucy was disappointed at her wickedly bad comeback. Who cares if she knew her name?

Minerva flipped her hair and exited and Lucy turned on Loke. Her chest was tight with the confrontation and her eyes stung embarrassingly. She opened her mouth to spill the truth, that Minerva was a goblin and a wretch but it felt like too much drama to bring into her brand new job. She said lamely, "I'll pay for it."

Loke stared at the mess.

Freed drifted up from the back of the store. "Is everything alright?"

Loke's shoulders fell. "Yeah. Everything's cool, just a broken statue is all."

"I'll grab the broom."

"Thanks, Freed."

Freed went into the back and Loke brought his attention back to Lucy. "Accidents happen. Don't worry about paying for it."

"It was three hundred dollars." The price tag glared up at her, a white square with red numbers pressed into it.

"We'll figure it out." He distracted from her protest with, "Have you had lunch yet?"

"No." The tears were doing more than stinging her eyes, they were starting to boil over.

"Well, it's time for your break. Take thirty minutes, get something to eat." Collect yourself is what he really meant.

Lucy left everything where it was and entered the mall.

The food court was a zoo during lunch hour; there was one person that stood out in the masses, though.

Lisanna was in a pair of fishnet sleeves and ratty black jeans. Her T-shirt was pink with a rainbow heart flag in its centre. There was a black bow in her hair, too, its edges floppy. Her boots completed the whole thing, large and black and without shine like she'd picked them out of a bargain bin, saving them from what had been a rough life. "Hey."

"What are you doing here?"

Lisanna lifted her shoulders. "I wasn't doing anything else and thought maybe we could have lunch."

The tears tried to come again; Lucy quashed them. Crying felt like letting Minerva win this stupid fight.

"Sit." Lisanna patted the chair next to her. Lucy finally saw the towering plate of fries slathered with salt and then ketchup.

"Thanks."

She didn't feel hungry, exactly, but she didn't feel disgusted with herself, either. Taking from Lisanna's plate was the step between. The food wasn't _hers_ so it was okay. Somehow. Lucy didn't understand the logic. She didn't try to think on it too much, either, otherwise, the delicate balance between _okay_ and fainting in Green Earth again would be pushed. Loke might just fire her there.

"What's bothering you?"

A whole lot. She was surprised, though, when she asked Lisanna, "Do you think Minerva's going to hate me forever? I mean, Erza was the one that gave her the black eye, not _me_. I just wrecked her stuff. In the grand scheme of things, she should be madder at Erza. I didn't mean to ruin her stupid coat. Erza definitely meant to ruin her face, though."

"Can I tell you a secret?" Lisanna whispered conspiratorially. "I hate Minerva."

Honest to goodness hated her; the truth was plain to see. Lucy's smile was wobbly. "I think I hate her, too."

* * *

"Are you heading home now?"

Lucy fumbled the jacket she'd borrowed off Lisanna that morning—green, army-style, with a wool lining that was really actually too hot for the first few days of fall. _Waterproof,_ though. It was a selling feature for fickle fall.

"Kinda. I'm going to my friend's work first." She tagged on, "If that's alright." Just in case she misread the schedule and she wasn't supposed to leave yet.

"Yeah, of course. Is it across town?"

"Henry's," Lucy said.

"Do you need a ride? I could call you a taxi. On me."

Everyone was walking on eggshells. Lucy revelled in the tension. Maybe she _should_ be a detective like Detective Dreyar had suggested. Somewhere far, far away, out of the shadow of her father, away from the shame. "That's fine, save your money." Especially after her earlier flub.

"I could walk with you, if you want," Freed offered from Loke's right; Lucy couldn't see him through the wall but could perfectly imagine the expression he was wearing—he only had two. Earnest Freed. Indifferent Freed. And that was his earnest, helpful voice.

"It's okay, really. Thanks, though," she called to him.

Loke didn't like that answer, that was obvious, but he didn't push it any further. "I'll see you tomorrow, Lucy. And good work today."

"Yeah, okay," she said sarcastically.

"I'm serious. Forget about the statue. Babies are disgusting."

Lucy smiled for him and it felt genuine.

* * *

There was one maple tree that was larger than the rest. It hung over the sidewalk like an Ent and shaded Lucy with its sprawling branches. The very tip of one low-hanging leaf was red, like sunsets and fire and roses. Like hearts.

She plucked it and stuck it in the bobby pin keeping her baby hairs from flying out of her half-ponytail.

The road curved and Henry's became visible. The sun was setting behind it, a large and bloodshot eye. The _Open_ sign blinked red and blue. Lucy listened to the bell jingle when she came inside. Natsu was behind the counter. He looked up from a stack of photos and grinned at her.

"I _should_ be mad you didn't text me, but I just had a lady come in that was obsessed with bugs and had like, a hundred photos of them to develop. They're pretty cool. Do you want to see some?"

Lucy could see the mouthparts of _something_ large and black and shiny from where she stood. It looked like nightmares come to life. "No, thanks."

"Just as well. She'll be back to get them soon." Natsu stacked them up neatly and put them in an envelope. Then he looked at her. Long and hard. "Did you do something different?"

Lucy raised her eyebrow. "What do you think?"

"I think so but I can't… I can't place it." He hummed and twisted his head, as if looking at her sideways would help. "Lipstick?"

"No."

"Did you get a spray tan?"

"What?"

"It looks amazing."

"That's _not_ what happened."

"No? Okay. A lizard? Did you get a lizard?"

"What are you even talking about?" Lucy demanded.

"You're right. That's not it. Come closer, that might help."

Lucy pressed into the opposite side of the counter. Natsu gazed at her; his mouth got serious and his fingers touched the fringe of her hair where the leaf was. "It looks good."

Her heart flopped. She almost missed the days when it would just stay still; it was a lot to keep up with. "My new lizard?"

"Yeah."

A buzzer went off on the end of the counter; Lucy jumped. Natsu swatted at it. "I have prints that need to come out. You want to come into the dark room?"

"Are there more bug photos?"

"No."

"Very well."

Natsu waved her into the black rotating door. She squished in and pushed it around. He came immediately after her. Red light cradled his frame as he started pulling pictures out of chemicals, rinsing them and hanging them off a triple-tiered wire strung from one side of the room to the other. They were family photos; everyone was smiling the kind of smile that struck envy in the hearts of their friends.

You know, the fake kind.

She and her dad had a hundred pictures like that. Christmas. Birthdays. Easter. Vacation.

Lucy leaned back against the counter, watching Natsu work. "Was it busy today?"

"The same as it ever is."

"So…?"

"I spent most of my time rearranging the cameras on the shelf and dusting."

"Great."

"It's not. I'm not good at cleaning."

Lucy laughed. Natsu smiled; it fell in increments. He turned back to the family photos. "Can we talk about what happened last night?"

Lucy squirmed. "Which part?"

"The balcony part, first."

"Okay."

"Was Zeref being weird?"

"I don't know what his normal is so I can't say."

"That sounds like a yes."

"He said some confusing things. About himself and about what's been happening in Clover."

He turned around again. It was a face-to-face kind of talk, then. "Zeref's on antipsychotics, so he's mellow most of the time, but he's also a compulsive liar. He likes to make things up and sometimes, it scares people."

"I wasn't scared."

His expression said he didn't believe her. "You don't have to be. He hasn't had an outburst in..." He made a big play of thinking of the amount of time. "Four and a half years."

_And three days, two hours, six minutes and forty-three seconds,_ Lucy added silently because that was the kind of thing you knew _exactly_.

Natsu said, "He's better now that he takes his pills."

He didn't _seem_ better. He seemed fundamentally broken, actually, sitting in his plastic chair, baring his teeth in a grin. A broken boy clutching a green bottle of pills, hoping they'd make his head right again, maybe. Or was he a broken boy that didn't _mind_ when he forgets how to be himself? "What was he like before?"

Natsu hesitated.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." If she downplayed how interested she was, maybe she could lure him out of his shell.

It worked. And better than Lucy thought it would. Natsu was like a devotee forcibly separated from his church but now sitting in a confessional. "He didn't have much personality. Not like he was a blank slate, really, but everything was kind of muted. He wasn't happy, he wasn't mad. Until something triggered him and then it was like a switch was flipped and he was just this horrible fucking _thing_ that needed to wreck everything."

And everyone, his tone said.

"One day he went too far and my parents finally got him help."

Lucy tried fitting Zeref in her photo album; he snugged into those pages like he belonged. The possibility that she saw him in the mural because he _made_ the mural wasn't really the life-altering revelation she expected it to be, though. It felt flat rolling through her mind and she couldn't decide if that was because she'd already drawn that conclusion or if it just didn't feel right.

Natsu tacked on, "You really don't have to worry about him, though."

"I'm not worried," Lucy said again. Not Lucky Lucy.

"Okay."

" _Really_ ," Lucy said.

"Okay." Natsu fixed some more photos to the line. His shoulders were still tight.

"What are you thinking?"

"Can we talk about what happened on the couch now? For real? Without the distractions and you running off?"

She owed him _something_ after he told her that truth. "I guess."

"Don't worry, I'm not going to apologize again," Natsu said.

"Good." She didn't want it.

He met her eyes. Natsu wasn't cowardly. "So… Are you and Lisanna like… together? Because she didn't say _yes,_ really, but she didn't say no, either."

"Probably because she doesn't know."

"Okay." He sounded surprisingly cool.

"She kisses me sometimes."

"So…"

"I don't know what it means," Lucy said. "I like it, though."

When Natsu looked at her, she realized that she expected him to be wearing the same disappointed expression her father would don. That wasn't really fair, though. They couldn't be more different. His face was clear. Non-judgemental. Open. Confused, yeah, but not angry or scathing or frustrated. His hand, when he touched her side, wasn't clammy. He didn't wear shame in the corners of his mouth or hold his erection in his hand, touching her and himself while pretending to not _._

"Are you okay?"

Lucy swallowed the lump in her throat. "Yeah. Just thinking."

"Alright." Clearly, he thought she was weird. "Anyway, I hope you guys figure out your thing."

"I told her I was coming here," Lucy said. "And she knows everything. And I'm no closer to figuring _anything_ out." Nothing at all. She didn't know about her killer, she didn't know about her father, she didn't know about Lisanna or Natsu or even what she was going to do tomorrow if she woke up and the Black Heart was caught.

However, she _did_ know if she didn't start articulating, people would tell her what she wanted. "I like it when you and I are together, though."

"Me, too." Even Natsu's uncertain smile was charming.

"And I still like it when you kiss me."

His eyes moved over her mouth and his thoughts couldn't be clearer. "Me, too."

Lucy channeled Lisanna's boldness and snagged his belt loop. "Will you do it again?"

"Are you sure that's what you want?"

"Yes."

Natsu covered her mouth with his and after a moment in which neither of them made a move to separate, his tongue spread her lips apart. The kiss was slow and torturous and exactly how Lucy envisioned being kissed.

"That was nice," she said.

"Nice enough to do it again?"

Lucy took him by the shoulders and brought him in again. Natsu moved from her hips to the small of her back. Higher, when she nipped his lip in what she hoped was a very unplayful manner. She was tired of the stop and go.

His fingers moved over the line of her bra and came back down again; his hips pushed her into the counter at her back. He pressed into her leg and she wasn't even repulsed. Exactly the opposite, actually.

Lucy lifted one side of her butt onto the table; Natsu grabbed her other leg and pushed her up the rest of the way. He was touching her thighs now and Lucy couldn't get any air. She wanted to be breathless, though.

She tipped her head to the side for him to kiss her neck and stared at the red light on the wall. It was almost like a red eye watching her. The mural come to life, she stared at it challengingly. She was alive and nothing the Black Heart did was going to change that. He would not intimidate her with murals or pictures or notes.

She revelled in her defiance. "Touch me."

Natsu used his thumbs and skimmed just lightly over Lucy's centre. She felt like she did when she was with Lisanna, sensitive and scared and eager, too. Who knew what the next stroke of his thumbs would do? 

His neck tasted like cologne and though she suspected he'd shaved that morning, stubble pricked her tongue.

Natsu moaned. That, too, was unexpectedly unrepulsive. Electricity moved from Lucy's head all the way down her middle to her feet. She pulled him tight against her and prayed that he'd move his thumb just a little more central, that he'd press a little harder, that he'd find real rhythm amongst the teasing strokes and make her come.

She bit his neck at the place where it sloped into his shoulder and he squeezed her hips. The Black Heart's canister slipped out of her pocket like a pea pushed from a pod and rolled off the counter and onto the floor.

Natsu paused and looked at the shelves over Lucy's head, sparsely stocked with canisters waiting for development. "How did that fall?"

This wasn't how she planned on this happening but nothing ever went _really_ according to plan. "It didn't. It's mine."

He leaned back to see her better. Wariness just oozed off him. "Where did it come from?"

"I found it." They were still close enough that Lucy could feel Natsu's breath on her lips. He did not look interested in kissing her again, though. Even his erection was going away.

"Found it _where?_ "

"Where we met yesterday."

"In the parking lot?"

"Yes."

He rolled that knowledge through his head, figuring out what she'd said and what that meant. "Like you found the camera?"

"Yes, I suppose."

"You had it all this time and you didn't say anything?"

"I couldn't find a right time to mention it."

Natsu put his hands through his hair and breathed out. "Are they _his_?"

"I don't know."

"But you think they are."

He looked very unhappy. Lucy couldn't bring herself to lie to him. "I think it's really possible, yeah."

"Fuck, Lucy." Natsu stepped away from her.

"Where are you going?"

"To call the police. They'll want to know."

"We don't know what they are, though."

"You think they're the Black Heart's. That's enough for me."

"It's not for me," Lucy jutted out her chin. "I want to know. First." _Had_ to.

Natsu reeled around on her. "Why are you so obsessed with him?"

"I'm not."

He shook his head.

"Okay. Maybe a little. But it's not as bad as you think it is."

"Really? Because it sounds like you want to be stalked by him."

"That's not true. I'm just trying to figure out who he is. The police aren't doing a good job and he keeps leaving me things—"

"What kind of things?" Natsu asked sharply.

Lucy backtracked. "I meant the photos."

"You don't know if those were meant for you."

"No. You're right. That's not what I meant. I just mean after I found the camera it feels like I have this chance to do something. Something real. And I _want_ to. I just need your help in developing the photos."

"We should call the police," he stated again. "No one leaves film canisters lying around. Who knows what's on it?"

"We'll just look at the negatives," she bargained. "And then I swear, we'll go right to the police."

"We should skip the first part and go right to the police part. They call this tampering with evidence. I saw it on CSI."

"CSI is garbage _and_ I've already tampered with the evidence. I removed it from where it was found, I put my fingerprints all over it, it rolled all over the ground before I got my hands on it, and who knows who touched it in between then? It was just sitting in the chain link fence." And the coup de grace. "Besides, I don't trust the police." Everyone loved a bit of intrigue; Natsu was no exception.

"Why?"

"Because Detective Fernandez gives me bad vibes." She told him her theory and he listened with rapt attention.

"Just because you don't like him doesn't mean that he's guilty."

"No, but these photos might tell us if he is or not."

Natsu sighed. "Okay. We'll develop the negatives and look at the first one. Then we'll give it to the police."

"To Detective Dreyar."

"Sure."

Lucy waved him on. "Go on."

Natsu picked up the canister like it was a loaded weapon and gathered his supplies.

* * *

It was agonizing waiting for Time to shake its stupor and walk on by. Lucy sat behind Henry's front desk and watched Natsu deal with his customers. He smiled like he _didn't_ have potentially brutal crime scene photos developing in the back room and was courteous to everyone, even the man that came in smelling like hotdog water.

Her original assessment was right. He was a nice guy. How were he and Zeref so different? "What was your house like when you were growing up?"

Natsu flipped the Open sign to Closed. The minute hand was creeping on five o'clock. "A bungalow."

Was he being purposefully obtuse? Lucy went with it. "Was there gardens?"

"My mom grew peonies and tomatoes."

"Together?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

"Did she have drapes or shutters?"

"The blanket of her favourite sport's team."

"In the window?"

"Yep."

"Okay. What kind of car did they have?"

"A Subaru, Honda, Chevy."

"Why so many?"

"It was one car, all put together. It was a good car until I crashed it through the front door on my first date."

"Why would you do that?"

"I forgot which pedal was the break."

Lucy laughed.

The buzzer went off on the counter. Natsu slapped it down and it _dinged._ He didn't say anything as he returned to the back room and Lucy couldn't, her heart was in her throat.

_This is it,_ she thought as she followed him in. Last time it was pictures of hearts. What now? What gruesome little clue did he leave her?

Natsu rinsed the negatives and held them up to the red light. Lucy put her chin on his shoulder and studied them, too.

Natsu rolled his thumb from the first negative to the last. Every one of them had one thing in common. "It's just scenery."

Lucy took it from him and held it closely to her face just to be sure. Trees and rocks and farm field.

He laughed a nervous, relieved laugh. "Guess we were wrong."

"Guess so." She didn't feel like she'd been played, though.

She put the negatives in her purse and felt the stiff edges of construction paper that hadn't been there this morning. Lucy used the tips of her fingers to feel its shape. It was cordate. Its centre bulged with glue in the shape of an L. She'd bet if she pulled it out right there, the letter would look golden, too, a sun rising from the night-black background.

She felt violated. He'd left her something without her knowing. He'd been so _close—_ she could have touched him.

She wanted to pull it out and read it. Natsu would never let her keep the negatives then, though. She practised her fake smile. "Thank you."

"Come on, I'll take you home."

Lucy closed her purse up tight and took his hand with the one that hadn't touched the heart. She didn't want to forget the way it felt.

* * *

Something was wrong when Natsu pulled up to the end of Rose's road. There were two cars parked outside of Rose Place. Sleek, black, and shiny in the sun's setting glow.

The first car's door opened and a man with a head of blonde hair stepped out. He examined Rose Place like a man examined a crushed cockroach. Disdainful and repulsed.

Lisanna sat on the porch in her ripped up jeans and boots. She'd found a sweater checkered blue, pink and orange. Her hair was still held back by a black bow.

She stared down Jude Heartfilia and his escort Magnolia officers with as much hate as a person could muster and did not move when he mounted the steps and thundered on the door.

Bile climbed up Lucy's throat. "We have to go."

She must have sounded convincing because Natsu didn't badger her with questions before putting the car in drive.


	15. Chapter 15

Lucy picked at a thread on Natsu's lined blanket like she was picking at a scab. She could not stop, and when it unravelled an inch, she pulled it six.

Natsu adjusted so his chin was resting on his knee and his arms were wrapped around his leg. They'd been sitting in silence for the last twenty-five minutes and it seemed like he'd had enough of waiting for her to spill. "Was that your dad?"

Lucy's throat constricted. "How do you know that?"

"He had the same coloured hair, and your reaction just now."

"Oh," she said weakly.

"You're on the run from him?"

"Is that what I'm doing? I don't know."

He touched her foot and slid his thumb up over her ankle. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really." It wasn't as easy to tell him what she'd told Zeref. Zeref didn't have as many emotions as Natsu seemed to. He was a wall.

"Okay." Natsu moved from her ankle to her calf. His hand was warm and comforting. "You can stay here."

Lucy focused. "I don't want to intrude on you again."

"It's not intruding. I don't mind."

"Happy did."

"Happy's not here right now," Natsu dodged. "Please."

"Natsu…"

"Do you have another place to go?"

She did not. "Maybe I'll stay just for the night."

"Sure. No problem."

His phone hummed the Pink Panther theme song. Lucy saw Lisanna's name flash across the screen. Natsu picked it up before she could read the text and tapped something back.

"What's going on?"

"She's coming over."

"Did she say what happened? Is my dad with her?"

"Do you really think she'd bring him?"

Lucy sat back against the headboard. "No."

"No." Natsu put the phone back in his pocket. "I'm going to make some hot chocolate."

It was an open-ended invitation, should she want to accept it but she did not.

He squeezed her calf one more time and left. Lucy put her head back against the headboard and listened to him bash around in the kitchen. She imagined he was a messy maker. He'd leave coco powder and cinnamon on the counter until either he remembered, or Happy cleaned it up for him.

Her father wasn't anything like that. He was neat, always, tidy and attentive.

"It's what you like, Lucy," she imagined him saying. "Mess annoys you, and your life has become very, very messy." He laid down beside her. "You should just come home, where everything is easy and predictable." He was sliding his hand across her body like it was innocent. Like it was what other people did. He was reaching higher to her breasts and then low, and she could _not._ She thrust him from her mind.

_It won't happen again._ She wouldn't let it. No matter what the cost.

She turned and her bag dug into her thigh. For the first time in almost an hour, she thought about the present the Black Heart had left for her. Curiosity burned away the bad feeling thinking about her father left behind.

Lucy listened for Natsu's whereabouts before she fed her obsession. He was still in the kitchen, opening and closing the fridge door. She pulled her bag into her lap and took out her heart.

It looked strange not swinging from a tree, a construction paper Valentine an admirer might leave on someone's desk. Black, in the pale way construction paper was, like it hadn't soaked in the dye quite long enough.

Its edges were neat and tidy. She didn't think they used a stencil; they had patience.

The L was followed by an H. Lucy Heartfilia. Very precise. They knew just who she was, then. It was unnerving and thrilling. Lucy opened it slowly and peeked inside.

The note was printed in the same neat letters as the last. Concise.

_I want to do something nice for you. You deserve it._  
I'll take care of everything.  
-BH

What did that _mean_?

Someone knocked on the front door. Lucy tipped her head, listening.

"Thanks for coming."

"Where is she?"

"My room. Down there." The one with the classic, _Creature from the Black Lagoon_ poster on the door.

Lisanna's footsteps were light as a fairy's on the parquet floor. Lucy hurried to stuff the heart back into her bag. She just got the zipper closed when Lisanna opened the door and looked in. She held a pink reusable bag, its sides burgeoning.

"Hey."

"How are you?"

"I'm okay," Lucy said. Her heart, though, was a jackhammer, and she loved the way the adrenaline rushed through her veins.

"I brought you some stuff. Clothes and things." Lisanna came more into the room and closed the door.

"Does that mean I can't go back to Rose's?"

Lisanna sat on the bed with a sigh. "I overhead your dad talking to Miss Porlyusica. He told her to tell him when you came back."

"He can do that?" Wasn't it illegal to just barge into a women's shelter and demand information on the girls using it?

"I don't know, but he's trying. I'm afraid he's watching the place."

He would. He ruined everything. Lucy's eyes stung. "What about my job?"

"I don't think anyone told him you were working at the mall."

But he'd be _looking_. "It's the only Adult thing I have going for me and now I have to quit."

"Wait," Lisanna said. "Don't yet. Talk to your boss."

"And tell him my pedophilic, molesting dad is on the hunt for me?" Lucy hissed quietly. She really would rather die.

"You don't have to tell him that _exactly._ Maybe just something simple. You have an old boyfriend looking for you and you don't want to be found."

"In what world is that simple?"

Lisanna's cheeks were red. "Alright, not simple but not far from home. I can tell you about some of the fucked up things Bickslow's done to get my attention and it'll be believable."

Lucy shook her head.

"Okay. If you'd rather not say anything, just ask him not to give out your information. He has to obey. It's the law."

Sometimes, law and men didn't always agree.

_Loke's nice, though_ , she thought. If she asked, he wouldn't blab.

"And we'll change your hair so not just anyone can recognize you," Lisanna said. "I brought my sewing scissors."

Cheap, efficient and effective, if people were looking for a girl with long, blonde hair. "Do you know how?"

"I cut my sister's bangs," Lisanna offered. "How hard can it be?"

"I guess."

"Great." Lisanna put down the pink bag and started going through it. Lucy saw the edge of her photo album.

"You brought it?"

"I didn't want your dad seeing it. It's special." She looked sheepish.

It was special, in a way she couldn't quite explain. "Thank you."

Lisanna unearthed her sewing kit. "Show me where the washroom is, we'll do your hair right now."

Lucy took her hand and led her out into the hallway. Natsu was still in the kitchen, leaning back against the counter and slowly stirring a cup of hot chocolate.

"We'll just be a minute," Lisanna said to him.

Lucy closed them in the washroom. The fish stared at her. She turned away from it and closed the seat on the toilet. "Forwards or backwards?"

"Backwards first," Lisanna said and Lucy turned around, hands clutched in her lap. Lisanna settled in behind her. She was warm and comforting in a way Lucy hadn't expected. "Are you going to sleep here tonight?"

"Natsu offered."

"And you said yes?"

"I said yes but I'm wondering if I shouldn't," Lucy responded.

"Why wouldn't you?"

"Because I keep thinking, if I leave now, I can have a head start."

Lisanna picked up a lock of hair and cut it so short, Lucy felt her stomach pitch. "Things are messed up but you have something good here. Please don't go."

"I can't stay here forever." Happy would be furious. If he ever came home.

"Then we'll get a place together, you and me. My eight weeks are almost up at Rose's."

That was a prospect Lucy hadn't considered. "You'd do that?"

"Once I get a job," Lisanna said.

"What if my dad finds me?"

"I'll teach you how to vanish." Like that was the single thing she was good at. "My brother and sister still don't know where I am and I've been gone for almost two months."

More of Lucy's hair fell around her waist. She touched the back of her head. She could feel her neck. "We can look," she said eventually.

"Great." Lisanna came around her front and clipped her bangs. "Are you going to tell me now what was on the film?"

"Nothing."

"Liar. Try again."

Lucy checked back over her shoulder; the door was still closed, of course. "Just a bunch of scenery."

Lisanna's movements slowed. "What kind of scenery?" She was more suspicious than Natsu.

"Just the regular kind."

"And someone just… dropped the canister in a chain link fence?"

"I guess."

"Lucy."

"There weren't any hearts or anything. No bodies."

Lisanna cut off another hank of hair. "Then what is it?"

"I didn't get a chance to really look at it," she said hotly.

"I'm just asking."

"And I don't know. When I get a chance, I'll take a better look and tell you what I find."

Lisanna gave her a _really_ look and Lucy held her hand over her heart. "I swear. You'll know when I know. If there's anything _to_ know."

"Alright." She still looked worried, though.

"I really do promise," Lucy reiterated.

"It's not that," Lisanna said.

"Then what?"

"I kind of feel like this is my fault."

"The canister?"

"Well, _yes,"_ Lisanna said. "I was the one that dragged you out to the farm field and then into the parking lot, but I was actually talking about your dad."

Lucy's thoughts were whirling but she waited patiently for Lisanna to continue.

"After I left you in the mall, I was walking home and I saw this blue Buick, and I thought to myself, what if it was coming to Rose's? What if it was coming for Lucy? And then when I got there, Miss Porlyusica was having a fit. Like. She was _furious_. Demanding to know where you were, and ordering me to hide anything in your room that might be linked to you, and I knew that it was real, I'd had another one of those… like premonition things. He was coming."

"You think you thought my dad to Rose's?"

She looked really embarrassed now. "I don't know."

"The cars out front were black." And Lincoln.

"I know. It was just this feeling I had, okay?"

"I'm not making fun of you," Lucy said. "I'm just…" She didn't know. "Trying to make you feel better, I guess. It's not your fault. He's been looking for me since I left. I'm surprised, honestly, it took him this long to find me."

Lisanna sighed. "He'll back off soon."

She didn't know Jude Heartfilia very well. Lucy let her think it, though. It was the nicer thing to do.

Lisanna made the last few cuts and stepped back, examining her work. "I think that's it." Lisanna helped her stand and brought her to the mirror. Lucy touched the feathered ends of her hair. It was so short; it was above her chin. Like a pixie cut. The front was longer than the back. Lisanna took the black bow from her hair and put it in Lucy's.

"I look like I came from an In This Moment concert."

"Once we put eyeliner on you and get rid of your preppy clothes. He won't recognize you. It's perfect."

It was _strange_ , certainly. She was Lucy Heartfilia and she wasn't. She tried to straighten her hair from its tousled state. Lisanna scolded her. "It looks better messy." She stood between Lucy and the sink and fixed Lucy's locks. Then she took eyeliner from her pocket like it was just something she carried around always and slathered it on.

"Are you sure?" Lucy asked.

"It looks good. Better than good." Lisanna leaned in and kissed her. Lucy opened her eyes and looked at them in the mirror, silver and gold and black; her eyes were so dark. Everything was surreal. She couldn't see the old Lucy.

Lisanna pulled back. "How are you feeling? Nice and distracted?"

"Sort of."

"And this is just the beginning." She leaned into the mirror and fixed her lipstick. "You're going to be laughing by the end of the night."

"I doubt that."

"Smiling, at the very least."

"Maybe." Lucy gathered up any stray hair. It sat in the wastebasket, the last of who she used to be.

"You underestimate me." Lisanna yanked open the door and exited. Lucy was slower, again looking at her new hair, her makeup. Did it change who she was completely? Absolutely not. But it was a start.

Natsu filled the doorway and looked her up and down. "It looks good."

Lucy touched the nape of her neck self-consciously. "Really?"

"Yes. Definitely."

It was his brother that was the liar, Lucy thought and smiled. "Thanks."

"Are you okay if we run out for a few minutes?"

"To go where?" Lucy asked suspiciously.

"It's a surprise."

"I don't like surprises."

"Okay," he caved. "Lisanna thought we should go get sushi. There's a place just down the street. We'll be twenty minutes, tops. But we don't have to do that if you don't want to be alone. I think I have the stuff for tacos and we could just spend the rest of the night watching retro movies or playing video games or something."

She didn't want him thinking that she couldn't be alone. She'd been rattled but she wasn't _terrified._ "That sounds nice."

"Quickly," Lisanna called. She was already standing at the door with her boots on.

"We'll be back in a few," Natsu said.

The apartment was eerily silent once the door closed. Lucy stared at herself for another moment, imagining she was _not_ the same person that left Magnolia, really, really believing it. That girl didn't have a serial murder case to solve.

She returned to Natsu's room and went through the bag Lisanna brought. There were clothes in there that didn't belong to her, ripped and retro and grungy, but when she pulled them out and tried them on, they were the right size. There was a pair of running shoes, her toothbrush and a cellphone she didn't recognize. When she turned it on, it was completely blank, except for a few numbers in the contacts. Lisanna's, Natsu's and Detective Laxus Dreyar.

Lisanna was probably thinking, _just in case_. In case she wanted to tell him her dad was in town, or in case she wanted to tell him about the hearts and the canister.

She put the phone back and pulled out her photo album. It was nice to hold it in her hands again like it was the outline of a puzzle she was slowly building. She added her heart to its pages with the glue Lisanna brought. She really was thoughtful.

Lucy put the album back in her bag and returned to the living room where she took the negatives from her purse. The best way to look at them was to put them against the window and use the light of day.

There were seven shots in all. The first five were of the park. She recognized a few buildings, the pond where Amanda Ashley lay, the river where Natasha Green was found, Sara Phillips, Lauren Graham, Nicole Vince. There were two outliers. The parking lot where Isla Morris went missing, looking out towards the farm field, and the mural.

"I didn't think anyone died there."

Lucy crumpled the negatives in her hand and spun around. Zeref looked at her blandly. He held a case of beer and there was an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

"What?"

"Those are the crime scenes, aren't they? I didn't think anyone died in the parking lot." Zeref put his beer down by the kitchen and cracked open the case. He came out with two and handed one to her.

"I didn't hear you come in."

"I imagine. Has the heart attack passed yet?"

"I'm _fine,_ just startled." Lucy played with the beer's metal top; it bit into her skin. "How do you know?"

"What?"

"That they're crime scenes?"

He showed her his teeth. "Suspicious?"

"Just _curious_."

"I recognized the pond. That's all that's been on the news lately." He took a lighter from his pocket and approached the balcony. Lucy followed his cloud of smoke.

"You don't really seem like the kind to watch the news."

"Everyone watches the news unless they live under a rock." He dropped down into his seat. Lucy took the one she'd been in the previous night.

"What do you think of it?"

"It?"

"The murders."

"I think he's killing rich girls. I think he's doing it like a prick."

Was there a way to kill someone that _wasn't_ like that? "Why, though?"

"I'm not a psych."

"But you're—"

"Crazy?" he finished for her. "So I must know what all crazy guys think?"

"That's not what I meant."

"It was, but it's okay." He drank long and deep of his beer. "In my _professional_ opinion, I think he's obsessed. And I think he's angry."

"Obsessed with what? All the girls he kills?"

Zeref shook his head. "It's not about _them._ It's about _her_."

" _Who_?"

"The one he can't have. Love makes people stupid."

Lucy opened her beer and dropped the cap in the tomatoes can Zeref used for an ashtray. "An interesting prospect."

"And probably right. Find the girl that scorned him and you've got your killer."

"That sounds like Isla Morris," Lucy said. "I think she was the first victim but the police haven't found her body. I guess her death photo was the parking lot."

"Mm. Isla Morris. Isla Morris. Where are you?"

"Someplace deep and dark and damp."

"How do you know that?"

Lucy's cheeks flushed. "I just do."

"Can I teach you how to lie?"

She didn't know if he was serious or not. It looked like _Zeref_ didn't know, either. "No."

"Then do it better or tell the truth."

"Do you promise not to say anything?"

His eyes glowed. "I like this secret thing. Go ahead. Hit me."

"Lisanna and I made an Ouija board," Lucy blurted. "Out of cardboard and newspaper letters. And we used it and asked Isla where she was."

She didn't know what she'd been expecting but it wasn't blatant laughter. "That's your big plan? To catch him like that? She'd just reach through and tell you where he stashed her? And then what?"

"And then I find her body and tell the police and they get their evidence and arrest him."

"Tidy. Maybe it'll even work before he corners you, Lucy."

"I told you, he's not going to kill me."

"Because _you're_ the girl? The obsession?"

She had chills. "He left me another heart."

Zeref's cigarette burned red like a sore eye. "What did it say?"

"That he wanted to do something nice for me. And that he'd take care of everything."

"And you haven't gone to the police yet. Interesting."

"Someone could just be trying to mess with me."

"Or, option two, there really is a killer looking at you as hard as you're looking at him. It's not normal, Lucy." His words were softened by a wry smile.

"Are you going to tell Natsu?"

Zeref settled further in his seat. Sunlight, tawny and faint, touched his cheeks, making him look warmer than what he was. "I don't have to tell him. He knows you're obsessed."

"Then why hasn't he said anything?"

"Because if he doesn't have something dysfunctional in his life, he's not living. Not that he does it consciously," Zeref added. "He's just always picked the hard and broken way. He'll say he likes the challenge. And I'll say Mom and Dad and Zeref really fucked him up. You know when we were little, he walked in on my dad fucking our neighbour in the garden shed? She put a handle of a pair of sheers in his asshole and she was bent at the waist. Natsu came rushing in to tell my mom and when she went out, she didn't come back for six hours. We all thought she left for good. He was freaking out and my dad was _pissed_.

"She came back that night with meatball subs and no one said anything about it. It was very Stepford." He grinned ear-to-ear.

"Is that a true story?" Lucy asked.

"Parts," he said.

"Which?"

"Every good storyteller will lie. No good storyteller will tell you _where_ , though."

Zeref unnerved her with his casual compulsive disorder, but she enabled it. "I guess that would take the mystery out of it."

" _Yes_ ," he agreed.

She drank the rest of her beer.

"Do you want another?"

"Sure," Lucy said.

Zeref disappeared inside. Lucy looked out towards the park. There was a man walking on the sidewalk. He looked up and their eyes met and all she could think was, _Dark. Dark. Dark. Dark._

Zeref returned and pushed a beer into her hand. He lit another cigarette. The man looked back at the sidewalk and continued.

Lucy drank in silence and Zeref hummed out _Dark Saturday_ like he'd reached into her head and pulled out the tune. He hummed it over and over again, beginning to end, and didn't stop until the balcony door opened. Lucy leaned her head back on her seat and looked at Natsu. He was giving his brother a stare that wasn't entirely friendly.

"Hey, Zeref."

"Hey."

"I told you to text me if you were coming back."

"I forgot." Zeref reached up and tapped his cheek roughly. He was far drunker than Lucy initially thought.

"Come on. I got sushi." Natsu lifted him up from beneath the armpits and brought him inside, onto the couch. Lucy looked through the window and saw Lisanna setting down bags and pulling food and chopsticks out.

Natsu returned for her and leaned against the railing. "Sorry, he's wasted."

"He only had a couple beers."

"It's his medication," Natsu said.

Oh. "I didn't know."

"That's okay. He'll eat something and he'll be fine." He picked at the beer in Lucy's hand. She gave it up to him and he took a sip. "It's warm."

"He just bought it."

Natsu rolled his eyes. "Was he okay with you?"

"He was fine."

"Good. I told you."

Medicated Zeref was good Zeref.

"You're okay if he stays here tonight, too?"

"I'm a guest in your house."

"Yeah, but if it makes you uncomfortable, I'll tell him to stay with his friend."

Lucy shook her head. She _wanted_ conversations with layered meanings. She wanted Zeref's candor and his lies and his cut-you-in-two gaze that made her question deeper. "Don't do that."

"Okay." He stood there awkwardly for a moment, close enough to touch her, far enough away that if she wanted space, she could get it.

"How come Happy isn't here?"

"He doesn't like Zeref much," Natsu admitted.

And she could see why. He could unsettle you with just a glance.

"Lisanna and I are talking about getting our own place so hopefully, I really will only have to stay here a night or two, tops. If that's okay."

"Don't worry about it," he said. Easy. Breezy. Even if he was worried, he wouldn't let it get him down. His best defence was his smile and he always had it locked and loaded.

Lucy squeezed his hand and kissed his cheek. He turned it into a real kiss and she let him. The wind tugged on her hair and Natsu's body pressed her into the railing, and the Black Heart looked on. Lucy could feel him.

* * *

Zeref smoked a lot of weed. A bowl every couple of hours, at least. The apartment was thick with smoke. Lisanna took a hit every time he did and lounged in it, on her back on the couch, her feet on Zeref's lap, her head on the armrest, looking like a dandelion that someone had picked up and blown away.

Or something like that. Lucy didn't know. It was hard to think in all the smoke and all the noise. Everyone was laughing and the world was spinning around and around and pressing in on her and the only thing she wanted was stillness.

She got up and peed. She passed by Natsu's darkened room on the way back and made a detour. She mostly closed the door, leaving just a crack behind where light could come through and went to his bed. She curled up on the pillows. It was more comforting now than it had been earlier that day.

Lisanna squealed again. She really did thrive in these places. People flocked to her and basked in her charm. It wasn't even something that Lucy could pinpoint exactly. It was just _her._ She made everyone feel better. And she did it so easily.

_Are you jealous of her_?

That, Lucy didn't know.

She needed something to make sense of and took out her album. She scooted to the end of the bed where the light dashed through the door and poured over all the facts again. She whispered all of the dead girls aloud, the dates they died, the approximate time of death, who found them, what they were wearing, what part of the city they came from, any possible acquaintances.

None of their hearts had notes in them. Lucy took that as an affirmation of her and Zeref's theory. She was special. But _why?_ What made her that way? Her father? He wasn't a police officer, but he was high up in the Magnolia Police department. Or was it just the fact that she wanted to see the killer for what he really was? She was doing something no one else was and seeking him out?

That didn't _feel_ right, though.

The door creaked open and Lisanna came in. She draped over Lucy's photo album like it was nothing. Maybe, compared to her, it was. "Why are you hiding?"

"I'm not. I just needed to lie down."

"Mm." Lisanna took Lucy's arm and pulled and wasn't satisfied until Lucy left her album behind and was leaning overtop of her, arms planted on either side of Lisanna's sides.

"Shouldn't you be going back to Rose's soon?"

"Zeref said he was going to walk me," Lisanna said.

Zeref. Lucy felt a low, jealous pang. "When?"

"When I'm ready." And that wasn't yet. Lisanna leaned forward and ran her tongue over Lucy's lips. Lucy let her in and the jealous monster subsided for the girl that kissed her fervently and pulled at her shirt. "You feel so good."

"Someone might come in."

"They're smoking another bong," Lisanna said. "They won't notice."

Woody Woodpecker played on the TV in the living room, and Lucy thought maybe she was right, that was a world separate from this comfortable cave. Lisanna pulled at her shirt again and Lucy threw it onto the pillows. Lisanna unclasped her bra. Her mouth was hot, her kisses wet, and her hands forceful, pushing Lucy back so they could reverse their positions.

Lisanna kissed down her throat and her chest to her breasts. Lucy buried her head in Natsu's pillow to muffle her sigh. She kept it there because it was less scary when she wasn't watching Lisanna's fingers trailing down her middle to her hips, she could only feel her undo her jeans.

She lifted her hips and Lisanna wiggled her pants down. Her underwear went the same way and Lucy had never felt more naked in her life. She kept her eyes closed. Every touch was a surprise, every kiss. Lisanna started at her knee and made her way north at a nice and manageable pace. Lucy was shaking by the time she reached the junction of her legs and panting, and just dying for her to keep going.

She kissed the very edge of her first, then used her tongue to find that one sweet spot. Lucy let go of the breath she was holding and spread her legs more. Lisanna disappeared. When she came back, Lucy could feel more of her skin. She'd done away with her shirt, too.

She worked patiently. The world fell away; Lucy stopped hearing the TV and Natsu and Zeref and zeroed in on this.

Lisanna's kiss turned languid and sweet as if she understood what was happening better than Lucy did. Then she felt it, the catching fire. She arched her hips and clutched Natsu's pillow against her face to muffle the sound of her orgasm.

Lucy may have liked the dark but Lisanna didn't want her to stay there forever. She pulled back the pillow and kissed her. "Did you want to try?"

"What if I'm bad?"

"Then I'll tell you and tell you how to do it better."

Reasonable. She couldn't keep receiving and never giving. "Alright."

Lisanna sat back and shucked off her pants. Lucy heard them and her album hit the floor somewhere on the opposite side of the bed. She flopped down beside Lucy and spread her legs.

Getting up was the easy part. Emulating what Lisanna had done. Kissing her mouth, her breasts, her body. When it came time to be between her legs, Lucy had no idea what she was doing. She knew what she liked, though, and used the tips of her fingers to make small and gentle circles. Lisanna was so slick.

Once, when she was seventeen, she'd stumbled onto a lesbian porno. She mimicked now what she remembered those girls doing and grabbed Lisanna's bare breast. She cried out, not nearly as concerned as Lucy had been with quietness, and bowed her back.

"Sh."

Lisanna hooked her arm around Lucy's neck and pulled her forward. Lucy kissed her breasts and teased the tip with her tongue. Then she put her fingers inside of Lisanna and used her thumb to keep going. That got her another not-so-quiet cry. It was nice knowing she was doing something right. Lisanna was swollen and her fingers were tight in Lucy's hair and on the blankets.

Lucy moved to her other breast and used her teeth this time, just lightly. Lisanna pushed her hips up and whimpered. Lucy kept on steady, the red minutes on Natsu's radio clock edged by in a blur. Finally, Lisanna's entire body got taut. Lucy eased back slowly until Lisanna went limp and her breath evened.

"See?" Lisanna asked eventually. "You don't suck."

"I guess not." Lucy went through her pink bag and got the nightgown Lisanna brought for her and a clean pair of underwear. She slipped into both and tiptoed out. She peeked into the living room. Natsu and Zeref were on the deck. They were smoking but she couldn't tell what.

She cleaned up. Lisanna was still waiting for her when she returned; she'd dressed again. "Will you come back out?"

"I'm kind of tired," Lucy said.

"Alright." She kissed Lucy, closed-mouthed and brief. "I'll meet you tomorrow for lunch again?"

"Okay."

Lisanna mostly closed the door. Lucy picked up her things, her shirt, her bra. She looked for her album and couldn't find it at first. She almost panicked but Lisanna had closed it up and put it back in her bag for her.

She smiled when she laid down. Natsu's pillow smelled like an amalgamation of his cologne and Lisanna's shampoo. She burrowed into it and closed her eyes.

In that weird half-asleep state, Lucy heard Lisanna say goodnight to Natsu, and Zeref exclaim that he'd be back soon. She listened to Natsu close himself in the washroom and brush his teeth. She listened to him come back out.

He pressed gently on the door; he'd turned off most of the lights out in the main apartment so Lucy couldn't see his face when she peeked between her lashes. He came to the bed and touched her shoulder gently. "Hey."

"Mmhm?"

"I forgot Zeref was sleeping on the couch."

Lucy scooted over and held open the blankets for him. Natsu stripped off his shirt and his pants and his socks, right down to his underwear and climbed inside. He was warm and liked to sleep close. Lucy could feel his breath hitting her cheek.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Kissing you," she said. The dark made everything better. _Easier_.

"Do you want to?"

Lucy wriggled closer and tried. He kissed differently than Lisanna. He was more cautious than she was, careful to let her set the pace and the tone. Tonight's theme was attention. She wanted all of it and was pleased when he tickled her neck with the tips of his fingers and down her spine. He touched all of her without being demanding. She closed her eyes.

"That feels nice."

Natsu kissed her again. "If you wanted Lisanna to stay, she could have."

It was too much hassle to explain about curfews and empty beds and the law of Miss Porlyusica's shelter and the complicated line between what they shared in the dark and what they did in the sunshine.

Lucy settled against him more firmly and touched him in similar ways she'd touched Lisanna, above his shorts and underneath. When the time came to switch positions, he used his fingers and not his tongue so she wouldn't have to forget the way Lisanna felt.


	16. Chapter 16

The sky looked like the bodice of a fancy French gown. The stars were pearls and the moon was a broach, and the blue-black behind them was the rich fabric holding it all in place. Lisanna watched it, and Zeref watched the ground and Bickslow watched Lisanna.

She knew it was him because she could feel him seething. His hate could be so corporal sometimes.

She let him boil.

"Did you see Lucy's photos?" Zeref asked the night.

"The scenery."

"The murder scenes."

Was that what they were? "Did you see them?"

"Some. She's secret about them."

"She's scared."

"She doesn't want to share," Zeref said more accurately. "Because I think secretly, she knows what we all know."

Zeref was a magnet, drawing her in with his low voice and his easy way of speaking. His liar's smile and the danger in his eyes. Lisanna's heart was a jackhammer. "What's that?"

"He sees someone else when he looks at her. Someone he loves or hates. And she sees someone else when she looks at him. My therapist calls it displacement. She'd say they're building a dependency."

Was that what was happening? "We shouldn't talk about this in the dark."

"It's not the kind of thing you talk about in the light."

"It's not. But it feels like… like if we keep going, he's going to come out."

"And you're scared."

Of _course_ she was.

"It's not like summoning a demon, though. Those things don't work." And he was the kind of guy that knew about that, his tone said.

"Please."

He acted like she hadn't spoken. Bickslow was the same. "You know, something's been bothering me, Lisanna."

It was shocking when Zeref used her name. Like it was a powerful weapon when it was wielded with his mouth. "What?"

He faced her and he was close. His skin was pale and his eyes were wild like Bickslow's and she thought she could love him the same, too, if she cared to. If she wanted to. If she couldn't bear to break this cycle she was a slave to. "Lucy is the damsel, my brother wants to be the hero, where do you fit into the story?"

Zeref might have been a hypnotist. Lisanna heard herself say, "I'm the lynchpin."

"The one holding it all together. The story begins and ends with you," he said like he saw everything clearly now.

"You could say that." God, she liked it when he looked at her like that, with all of his attention, like he was seeing _her,_ and seeing _through_ her.

"I like that. You do, too, I imagine, because you strike me as the girl that everyone always ignored."

Lisanna put her hand in his and then they were just two people walking down the street, hand in hand, having a conversation and _not_ , about things that mattered and things she didn't like to think about. "I was quiet."

"And shy. Sweet, too."

And then there was a moon and a parking lot and bruised ribs and a kind of curling horror that a person could forget, for a while, but when they came back to it, and they always _would,_ it always seemed so much worse.

Zeref said, "You're still all those things, though. Which is why you wear ripped up jeans and bright sweaters with a pride heart on the chest. You think you're tired of not being seen."

"Not so. I'm the vanishing girl," Lisanna said.

"Vanishing girl. The sad truth is, you never had to vanish, you were already lost." And lost was his specialty, that grin said.

Truth. After she'd left home, she didn't have to go far; she didn't have to try hard. She just stepped into the shadows and it was like she'd stepped off the earth.

He stopped and every part of him felt manic and menacing and she could feel Bickslow's eyes on her and he was menacing, too, and it was like she was a shred of tissue paper, caught between two violent storms. She could imagine them both about to tear her apart.

It frightened her, so when he plucked at her hair like it wasn't of much consequence and _looked_ at her the way she thought she wanted to be seen, she was immobile.

Lights washed over her feet and a car pulled right up beside her. She recognized the hum of the engine and stepped away from Zeref. Every part of her body was burning. "Good night, Zeref."

He watched her open _L. Dreyar's_ door without an expression on his face. Lisanna closed the door on him and faced forward.

"You've been doing drugs," was Laxus' greeting.

"And you're stalking girls in the streets."

"I was on my way to Rose's, actually. I got a call."

"About what?"

"Just, mind your own business, okay?"

"Is it about the Black Heart?"

He put the car in drive and they left Zeref behind. "Where's Lucy?"

"Why are you ignoring me?"

" _Where_ is she?"

He was intimidating but Lisanna would not budge for a bully. "So you can tell her dad where she is?"

"No one wants that except for Mister Heartfilia."

Laxus had a genuine way about him. No fuss. No frills. What you saw was what you got and that's that. She believed he wouldn't sell Lucy out like she believed he wouldn't blab about the hearts Lucy kept finding. "He touched her," Lisanna said boldly. She wanted to see Jude Heartfilia burn. "And now he's after her again. Arrest him."

Laxus' knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. "I can't just go around arresting people without proof. I need evidence. I need her to make a statement."

"She won't. She just wants to start new. She wants to forget about him."

He sighed. "I fucking hate cases like this."

Not as much as Lucy did, she'd bet. Lisanna put her head on the window. "She's staying with Natsu for now. We're going to get an apartment."

Laxus looked in his rear-view like he could see Zeref, though, in truth, he was long gone. "The Dragneels aren't right."

"Everyone's got skeletons."

He scratched his chin and Lisanna could hear the bristle. He needed to shave. "How long is Zeref in town?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

"How about this, when did he _get_ in town?"

"I don't know that, either," Lisanna said. "Do you think he's the Black Heart?"

"I never said that."

"But you're thinking that."

"So far, I've thought a priest, a family man, a renegade kid, a doctor and a store clerk's been the Black Heart, Lisanna, it's not really fucking hard to make the list."

But it was getting harder to stay on it, she thought. "Did you look into Isla Morris?"

"Yeah, but it led nowhere."

"You checked the parking lot?"

"Yes."

"And the field?"

"Yes. We've combed over everything. She's been gone for weeks now, though, and once the evidence gets that old…"

It was hard to find. Lisanna wanted to scream.

"Do you know something you're not saying, Lisanna?"

Maybe it was just the sound of her name aloud; Laxus seemed to have the same effect on her as Zeref. She wanted to fidget. She couldn't explain Ouija boards to him and have him accept it. "No."

* * *

The nine-thirty sun was bright. It warmed the leather in Natsu's car and made the interior smell glorious. Lucy breathed it in while she watched the parking lot for Lincolns.

"Do you see him?"

"No."

"Do you want me to come in with you?"

"You don't need to."

"But I'd like to. If you'd let me."

Natsu had been really patient. Ridiculously patient. Either he was a saint or a psycho. "Are you a psycho?"

"I mean, I had a brief affair with Lorazepam at the beginning of high school, but it made me sleepy and I decided that it wasn't worth it."

Just like that, she was thoroughly distracted. "What's Lorazepam?"

"A sedative."

Lucy pulled her legs up onto the seat and faced him. "Why did you use sedatives?"

He drummed his fingers on the gearshift. This was uncomfortable territory.

"You don't have to tell me."

"No, it's okay."

Despite that, the silence went on and on and on. Lucy watched the dash clock. She'd have to go in soon.

Natsu drew in a loud breath like he was psyching himself up. "Remember when you asked me what scared me?"

Clearly. The thunderstorm, the park behind her, Natsu standing there with a clean, dry shirt between his hands, a liar's smile on his mouth as he told her _nothing much_. "Yes."

"I told you when Zeref was about thirteen, he started having these crazy fits, right? And he'd take it out on anything. Dishes, computers, books, the couch even, once. We came home and the leather was split open and the fluff was out like someone was gutting a deer and he was just sitting in the middle of it, blank again. It was really fucking scary for eight-year-old me. I used to have nightmares about it. It escalated and he punched my dad once. And then we started to fight, too. I thought he was insane."

Because he was, Lucy thought but didn't say.

"My mom got him medicated and that stuff kind of calmed down.

"Let's skip ahead five years. It's September, my first year of high school, and I'm sitting in class trying to wrap my head around these stupid fractions, and this kid named Zancrow won't shut the fuck up. He's bugging Happy about his hair, and his weight—he was a bit chubbier back then—and he keeps spitting spitballs at him. I tell him to knock it off and he does, for a while.

"Lunchtime comes along and Happy and I are outside by the gym doors just minding our own business, Happy's got a sub and I've got poutine and we're laughing about something stupid, when Happy just goes down. His sub is everywhere, just all over the pavement, and I remembered that the lettuce looked kind of limp. Which is a weird thing to focus on, I know, but memories are weird.

"So here I am, really confused at first but then I see the blood and the football that's wobbling away and I get it. Happy's bawling like he was a kid again. The kind of cry that's just… sudden and you can't control it."

"Zancrow comes over with his friends and they're all laughing and calling him a faggot and deadshit and a pussy. They're kind of looking at me like I should join in. Like _everyone_ should _._ Zancrow pushed Happy when he got up and I felt something in me snap. The next thing I know, I've got Zancrow on the ground and people are screaming _fight_ and my fists are hurting but in the best way and I _loved that feeling_. I understood Zeref so well just then." He breathed out and it was shaky.

"What happened after?" Lucy asked.

"I lost the fight. Zancrow's friends stepped in and he knocked me unconscious. That's why I didn't get suspended, I suppose, it looked like they jumped us. Afterwards, though, I couldn't stop thinking about it. A few months later, a kid elbowed Happy so hard, he dropped his fries all over the ground and I snapped again. I did get suspended that time. My parents took me to Zeref's psych and after looking at Zeref's history, he prescribed me the sedatives."

Lucy saw it clearly then. "You're afraid of being like your brother."

"So afraid, I took them for an entire year. I couldn't do anything, though. I didn't mellow out like Zeref, I just got dead. Happy finally came over and dumped them all out and told me he had my back. If I was going crazy like Zeref was, he'd tell me and we could do something about it then."

"Do you still like to fight?"

His knobby knuckles flexed. "I love it."

Honest to goodness loved it.

"I haven't snapped like that in a while, though."

"And Zeref?"

"He's still on his meds."

Lucy faced forward again. The clock read nine fifty-three. She had to go in really, really soon.

"You don't have to be afraid, though, Lucy, I've never hurt anyone that didn't deserve it."

He was protecting his friend.

"I'm not scared." She took his hand and leaned over and kissed him to prove it. Long and slow and sweet.

"I'll walk you in," Natsu said.

Lucy snuggled further into the sweater Lisanna left for her and got out of the car. The sun was shining but the weather was brisk. It was a perfect autumn day and she loved it. Natsu took her hand and she loved that, too.

He kissed her at the entrance of Green Earth. "I'll be back around just before three."

"Thanks." The only other people she'd had wait on her before were people her dad paid for. It was nice having someone be there because they _wanted_ to be.

Freed stared at her hair when she came in but didn't seem to know what to say or how to say it. Lucy touched the back of her neck self-consciously. She felt naked without her draping locks.

_And…_

Free, maybe.

Different, certainly.

"New hair?" Loke wasn't as shy as Freed, sitting behind the counter, arms crossed over his chest and a wolf's smile on his mouth.

"My friend did it." Just in case it looked horrible.

"Nice. It suits you."

Lucy smiled. "Thanks."

"And a new boyfriend?"

She felt her cheeks heat. "I don't know."

"It seems like he does."

She shrugged. Anxious. "Maybe."

"Way to go, Lucy. You're making your mark in Clover."

Speaking of that… "Can I talk to you about something in private?"

Loke got serious. "Yeah. Come into the back."

They closed the storage room door and all Lucy could think was, _was this where the Black Heart put his valentine in my bag?_ Was _Loke_ the Black Heart? She looked in his eyes, trying to see a killer. She saw someone moody behind the tinted glasses he always seemed to wear, someone complicated, certainly, but someone _mean_?

"Is everything okay?"

"Someone may come looking for me here and—and I don't want them to find me."

He got even _more_ serious. "Are you in trouble?"

"Not really. I'm just… It's better if they don't know where I am."

"What do they look like?"

It was easier just to show him. "Can I borrow your phone?"

Loke gave it over and waited patiently for Lucy to search Jude Heartfilia. She gave him the google image and no explanation and he didn't ask for one, either. "I'll tell him I don't know you."

"Thank you."

He smiled. "If you need anything, let me know."

"Thank you," Lucy said again and meant it.

* * *

Lisanna was waiting for Lucy at the same table as the day before. She had a plastic grocery bag with her now, though, and a wan expression that spelled trouble.

Lucy was afraid to ask but… "What's wrong? Did my dad show up again?"

Lisanna shook her head. "Detective Dreyar was at Rose's last night, though. He was talking to Miss Porlyusica and some of the girls, too."

"About what?"

"No one will say." And it spooked her. "And, I saw the heart last night, Lucy. The one in your book." The new one, she meant. "Why didn't you say anything?"

Because it was a secret because the Black Heart was so, so close to her and she just couldn't figure out _where_. What kind of detective did that make her? "I don't know."

"Where did it come from?"

"It was left in my bag."

Lisanna went pale. "You're finding canisters, and now he's leaving you hearts in your bag? Where were you yesterday that he could do that?"

"Just here. And at Henry's." Though it would have been virtually impossible to slip a heart into her bag at Henry's, it was on her the entire time.

Lisanna snorted air from her nose. "I can't believe you. He's—he's _watching_ you! And you didn't say anything!"

"He's been watching me all this time. Nothing's different."

It looked like Lisanna thought it was.

"I brought this." Lisanna held up the grocery bag and Lucy recognized the bent edges of their cardboard Ouija board. "We're going to find out who he is once and for all and then—then you'll know how to avoid him."

Lucy pushed the bag down, shocked. "We can't do that in here."

"I know a spot behind the mall. It's quiet." She looked really, really uncomfortable. She didn't _want_ to be here; she didn't _want_ to be doing this. "Don't argue with me. It's happening."

"Fine." Lucy took Lisanna's hand and let Lisanna lead her out into the cool air.

The back of the mall was desolate except for a couple of transport trailers, some dumpsters, and graffiti on the walls. One was another red eye, looking out, looking at her. Lisanna went right to it and sat beneath it like she knew it was special, too.

Concrete dug into Lucy's knees and the wind cut through her shirt. She watched Lisanna pull their Ouija board out and set it on the ground. The U was loose and the L was bent. The cup she brought out was cracked in the very centre, not bad enough to break but bad enough it was useless. She probably pulled that from the recycling, too.

"You don't think we need candles?"

"No," Lisanna said confidently and Lucy put her fingers on the bottom of the cup. She felt exposed back here. Anyone could be watching her. Lisanna didn't care, though. She was content to sit there with her legs crossed and her elbows on her knees.

"Close your eyes."

She did and listened to the wind howling in her ears.

"Isla, can you hear me?"

Nothing.

"Isla?" Lisanna asked again.

"We need you to show up and tell us who killed you," Lucy muttered. "Or for you to tell us where to find you. If the answers are there. Because We went to the farm field and we went to the parking lot. I saw the mural but _that's all_."

_Dark. Dark. Dark. Dark,_ the cup spelled, slow, steady, carefully. Lisanna was peaking just between her lashes, and her lips were pressed so tightly together, they were white. Lucy had her own eyes open wide. She didn't want to miss a thing.

"Isla?"

The cup jerked to yes so quickly, Lucy's fingers were left behind. A scream was in her throat. She swallowed around it and put her fingers back on the glass. "Did you hear me? We can't find you, but we're trying. Can you help us?"

_Deep. Dark. Damp._

She could cry, she was so frustrated. "I _know_ that but what does that mean? We can't help you if we don't _know._ "

_Well_.

"Did a ghost just get testy with me?" Lucy griped under her breath. "Either name the killer or tell us where you are."

"Lucy?"

The spell, if it'd been there at all, broke. She whipped around. Loke was there, looking at her quizzically. "Oh." Her entire body flushed. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you, your lunch ended ten minutes ago."

And it was Freed's turn. "Sorry."

"I'll clean this up," Lisanna's cheeks weren't burning like Lucy's were. She was apathy personified, perfectly fine under Loke's puzzled stare.

"Thanks." Lucy left her there and re-entered the mall. The dull noise of laughter was comforting in a way, indistinct. "I'm really sorry, Loke."

"It's okay. I was just worried, mostly. You said that guy was looking for you and I just got a notification on my phone, they found another girl."

"What?" Lucy turned on him. Loke held out his phone for her to examine. There was some text, and below that was another picture, this one from a crime scene. Detectives Dreyar and Fernandez were in the background, looking at yellow number cards used to indicate the evidence surrounding a body bag.

Bile rose in Lucy's throat. She swallowed it down. "Who is it?"

"They haven't released the name yet. This whole fucking town is going crazy," Loke swore. "Can you believe it?"

Yes. She could.

The black heart was in a pendulum swing above the body. The initial on it was M.

* * *

The news circulated fast and the mall's mood changed. It was somehow both stressed and listless. Like, people cared about the new crime scene, but not because they cared about this newly dead girl. They cared that _their_ girl could be next.

Lucy stole Loke's phone every hour to check the news, hoping for a name release.

"Is everything okay, Lucy?" Freed asked the last time because she'd bit the edge of her nail so hard, it was bleeding.

She smiled for his benefit. "I'm fine."

He looked at her like she was a bit deranged.

Natsu arrived at the end of her shift. Somehow, Lisanna had found her way back to him and was by his side. Lucy retrieved her bag from the back and checked its contents. No black heart for her. She said goodbye to Freed in the back room and waved to Loke, who was fixing a display a little boy rearranged for them.

Natsu took Lucy's hand, Lisanna looped her arm through Lucy's and together, they left the mall.

"Was your boss mad at you after lunch?" Lisanna asked.

"Just worried," Lucy said. "They found another body."

"I know." The way she said that and looked at the ground made Lucy uneasy.

"You do?"

Lisanna pulled open the rear door and got inside. Lucy got into the passenger's seat. "You know how I said Detective Dreyar was at Rose's last night? It turns out he was looking for Minerva. She went out last night and didn't come home. A jogger found her around twelve this afternoon."

"That's terrible."

"They have the guy she was meeting and his roommate in for questioning."

"Sting Eucliffe and Rogue Cheney," Natsu supplied, getting into the driver's seat. He didn't seem surprised; Lisanna must have already filled him in. "Sting told me when I texted him about it."

Lucy remembered Rogue sliding through the bush, blood on his hand the night before Natasha Green was found.

Everything felt like it was pushing in on her. Her thoughts crowded.

_I want to do something nice for you_.

_You deserve it._

Lucy could practically _feel_ the construction paper heart in her hands.

_Did he see the fight with her at Green Earth? Was he the one in the baseball hat that came in?_ The one whose face she didn't bother to look at because he looked just like everyone else?

Had he really been _so. Damn. Close,_ watching her interactions?

He must have been. How else would he know about her feud with Minerva?

_You might have been able to save her if you showed someone the heart._

She couldn't get enough air and had to undo the window.

"Are you okay?" Lisanna asked.

No.

"Lucy?"

"Can we… can we go to Detective Dreyar?"

Lisanna's smile was fleeting. "He's going to meet us."

"He is?"

She reached into a bag in the back and picked up Lucy's photo album. Like she knew what Lucy would want. She handed it up and Lucy clutched it tightly to her chest.

She had apparently told Natsu about it, too, because he didn't ask any questions.

Lucy wasn't embarrassed. Relieved, more like. She maybe wasn't built for secret keeping.

Natsu started up the car. Lucy looked at the passing pavement.

* * *

As promised, Detective Dreyar was outside Natsu's apartment when Natsu pulled into his parking space, leaning against an unmarked car. His partner was in the passenger's seat, a bored look on his face. Lucy hunted for the killer in his eyes but wasn't sure of what she was seeing.

"Well go on," Lisanna encouraged her. Lucy's muscles felt all wrong, like they'd forgotten how to move. She got her door open, though, and managed to get her feet under her.

"Lucy," the detective greeted.

"Hi."

"That's the album?"

"I touched the hearts."

"We still might be able to pull something off them, though."

"Will I get it back?"

He shook his head. "It's evidence."

Of course.

"Have you had any other contact with him?"

"No. But I think he was at my work yesterday. I—I fought with Minerva before she went missing, and that's when I got the last heart. He said he was going to do something nice for me. He killed her because of _me._ He—"

"Breathe." Detective Dreyar had a steady way about him. It was his dishevelled aura, she thought. He was a mess just like everyone else and it was comforting.

"Good. Get in the car? We'll take your statement in there so you don't have to go near the station."

Where they'd plug in her name into the system so her father could find her. She almost cried for this simple gesture. "Okay."

* * *

"I can get you a safe house," Detective Dreyar said an hour later. Lucy was freezing; the car was running but the heat wasn't on. They forgot about it or something, listening to her and flipping through her album with blue latex gloves on their hands.

"Do I have to?"

"You don't have to do anything, really, but you should. He's targeted you, clearly."

"He's obsessed with her," Fernandez said in that dead way he had. He studied Lucy carefully like if he looked long enough, he could figure out why. "She'll draw him out."

"We can't use her as bait."

"Sure we can."

"It's _unethical_."

" _Logical_. And necessary. Another girl's dead and this is all we've got. Keep doing what you're doing, Lucy. Act like nothing's changed."

Dreyar tapped the steering wheel agitatedly. He didn't like the plan. They needed to be a united force, though, Lucy thought, so he didn't challenge his partner again. "If we do this, we need to know your movements. Where you're going, when, with whom. And, more importantly, we need to know the second he makes _any_ contact."

"You're going to tail me?"

"Us, other uniforms, that's the idea."

She didn't know if she _liked_ the idea of having a police escort. She was in deep enough, though. "Lisanna gave me a phone." She pulled it out of her pocket and texted Detective Dreyar her name. His phone went off and he programmed her into his contacts.

"Don't go anywhere without it," Dreyar warned. "I mean it."

"I won't."

"And don't travel by yourself."

"I won't."

"And if your friend starts getting weird, I want to know."

"Lisanna?"

"Natsu."

Natsu, who still waited patiently in his car, his hands in his sleeves because it was _cold._

"You think _Natsu_ could do something like this?"

"He has a history of violence; his brother has had assault charges laid on him before."

"But you have no reason to think he did this."

"He knew the last victim and was friends with her boyfriend, who we're detaining."

"So what? I was with him all last night," Lucy said.

"Lisanna's already vouched for him," Dreyar replied dryly. "I'm just saying you can never be too careful, Lucy."

And her carelessness had gotten someone killed. He didn't _say_ it, but he didn't have to. "Are we done?"

"For now."

Lucy stepped out and felt eyes on her. She followed her instincts and found a familiar man stepping around the building. Lisanna's boyfriend. Or ex-boyfriend. He watched Lisanna with a tragicness that was unsettling. He approached her when Lisanna got out of Natsu's car.

"Hey."

"You shouldn't be here, Bickslow." Lisanna pulled her sweater around her and hunched her shoulders and barely looked at him.

"Just a second. I want to talk to you."

"I said _no."_

" _Please!_ " He snagged her hand when she went by.

Lucy didn't know what overcame her but she pushed him. "Don't touch her."

Bickslow ignored Lucy altogether and got completely in Lisanna's way. "Just for a minute."

"I told you before, I don't want to see you anymore, and I _meant_ it!" Her voice quavered.

Bickslow's eyes sharpened. "Do you think because you got new friends you can be a new you? You think that's how this works? Because I got news for you, you're still the fucking girl that ran away from home, you're still _my_ Lisanna. And you might not like it, but what we have between us is the real fucking deal. So you fuck him. So what? He doesn't _know you_. He doesn't know you like I do, Kitten. We have history. Ugly fucking history and that makes what we have stronger than anything you could ever have with them!"

"She said back the fuck off!" Natsu stepped forward threateningly. Lucy's ears roared, but just below their roar, she heard Dreyar's car door open.

Touching Natsu felt like thrusting her hand into a nuclear blast but she was drawn to his violence almost like she was drawn to the Black Heart's. She laid her hand on his shoulder and felt all of his muscles tense. "The police are coming. Let's go, Natsu."

For a moment, it almost seemed like he was going to hit Bickslow anyway, but then Dreyar and Fernandez got between them. "Break it up, boys."

"He's harassing her," Natsu said.

"And following her around for days," Lucy added and Lisanna looked relieved that she didn't have to say the words, but also betrayed that Lucy had done it for her. The right thing wasn't the easy thing.

"I just want to talk to her!" Bickslow said. "I didn't do anything wrong—"

"Then you won't mind coming to the station and answering some questions."

"Why? I didn't _do_ anything."

"You're lurking around the park, for one, you're following girls around, for two, and, most importantly, I don't think I like you," Dreyar said. "Move it, before we put you in cuffs."

And Bickslow went. Lisanna was quivering head-to-toe. Her eyes were bright and glassy and she looked afraid. "Come on," Lucy nudged gently. "Let's get upstairs."

* * *

It took eighty-nine minutes and two joints to make Lisanna stop shivering. Natsu made them shrimp-fried rice and they watched an episode of _American Gods_ that Lucy wasn't up-to-date on. It was wild and vicious and visceral and didn't do as much as Lucy thought it _should_ to bring them away from the parking lot.

Natsu was the one that finally asked, "Do you think they arrested him?"

Lisanna said, "Why would they? He didn't do anything."

"He stalked you here," Lucy reminded her.

And Lisanna responded, "Maybe I wanted to be found."

"Why? Why would you want that?"

She looked to the ground as if ashamed. "He's all I've had for so long, sometimes I'm afraid he's all I'll ever have."

Like, would anyone love her as much as Bickslow did? Lucy could see the question written on her face. And she understood it. She asked herself that question frequently. Would anyone love her the way her father did? Love like that, though? It as so sick, it didn't deserve to breathe. But once it did, it was something tangible that didn't easily slide into the dark, even after you admonished it.

Lucy put her hand in Lisanna's and heard herself say, "That's not true. You have more than him. You have me." And it wasn't easy and it wasn't clean but it was honest, at least. "We don't need love like that."

Lisanna tilted her face up and her eyes were questioning. Lucy kissed her and Lisanna's tension just withered away.

Natsu got up and went to the balcony. Lucy saw his lighter flick and a red eye peered back in at her.

"Did you want to go after him?"

"He'll come back." Natsu was the type of person that did, once he got his thoughts in order. "Keep kissing me."

Lisanna wetted her bottom lip and Lucy pushed her back onto the couch. It was more intense than the night before, the lights were on, for one, and she knew Natsu was thinking about them. And she was on top of Lisanna on Natsu's couch and she didn't know if she was doing the right thing and—

Lisanna grabbed her side, just above her hip, and Lucy felt fire roar through her and knew she didn't care about the rest.

The balcony door opened and Natsu came in with a gust of smoke. Lucy sat up. Lisanna's legs were around her hips and her hands were on Lucy's waist like they were inseparable. Natsu looked at them. His hair had been rumpled and he smelled like cigarettes and he looked more than a little off-kilter, but when Lucy reached for his hand, he gave it to her, and when she pulled him down, he kissed her.

He really took his time, making sure it was right and felt good. By the time she felt his tongue, Lisanna's hands were on her breasts and she was wondering, what came after? And did she want to see?

Natsu cupped her face and she thought, _yes._

She touched his chest and she thought, _absolutely._

Lisanna reached up, her hand overlaying Lucy's and together, they travelled down, down, down to where Natsu suddenly strained against his pants and she thought nothing at all until someone moved out in the hallway and Natsu leaned away.

"Did you want to go to the bedroom?" Lisanna asked.

Lucy realized they were waiting for her answer. She nodded because it was easier and excitement rushed through her.

"Come on." Natsu's voice had turned husky.

Lucy wiggled back and Lisanna stood. She took Lucy's hand and led the way. She was bold again, exactly how she _should_ be.

The lights were off and Natsu left them off and everything was once again easier. When Lucy was without her shirt in the dark, she didn't get nervous. When she grabbed Lisanna, she didn't wonder if she was doing it right.

Lisanna pushed her down on the bed and kissed her chest; Natsu knelt by her head and kissed her mouth.

Lucy closed her eyes.

Natsu grabbed her breast and Lisanna pushed aside her bra and kissed her skin-on-skin around Natsu's strong fingers. Natsu breathed a frenetic sigh against her cheek.

She opened her eyes.

Lisanna was grabbing Natsu through his pants and squeezing and Natsu was pushing her shoulder, making her descend Lucy's body more until she felt Lisanna's warm breath between her legs.

The time between Lisanna kissing her through her pants and taking them off was a blur, Lucy just knew that there was now nothing between them and she was riding a high she'd never had before.

She pulled at Natsu's pants and they came open. He was stiffer than he'd been last night. She kissed his length and opened her mouth for him and he thrust inside. He kissed like he touched like he fucked. Deliberately.

The build was slow, Lisanna took her time more tonight than she had before and Lucy didn't understand it but she liked it because when she finally came, it was like her entire body was filled with the sweetest fire.

Lisanna climbed up her body and pushed Natsu back so she could kiss Lucy. "Do you want to try now?" For real, not with her fingers but with her tongue, Lisanna meant.

"Okay."

Lisanna smiled sharply and climbed up higher, her thighs on either side of Lucy's cheeks. It was like being trapped, under her like this, and it was more than a little intimidating. But then Lucy kissed her and her body shuddered and she realized she did have a sense of power down here.

She looked up. Lisanna was grabbing her own breasts and looking daringly at Natsu. He hadn't moved yet. Lucy _wanted_ him to. "Touch her."

His expulsion of breath was audible. Lisanna moaned. Lucy watched Natsu gather her breasts up and pinch them, she watched Lisanna take his erection in hand, and for a moment, she didn't think about anything else, no hearts, no dead girls, no stalking boyfriends or poisoned, hideous fathers with their poisoned, hideous love.

Natsu came before Lisanna did but she wasn't far after. Lucy felt a sense of accomplishment. When Lisanna got up and went to clean herself off, it was just her and Natsu and a whole lot of things that happen in the dark between them. He sat on the bed and brushed her hair back behind her ear and smiled and she knew that was okay.

* * *

Lucy dreamed she was again in the farmer's field and the sun was beating down on her, but she wasn't hot. She ran. She ran looking for Isla, through the grasses and twisted her ankles on hidden hillocks and got herself vertical with the help of a well at the edge of the field.

It was still dark when she opened her eyes. Natsu was asleep beside her, taking up more than his fair share of the bed. Lisanna was curled up on Lucy's other side, like a sow bug, almost, protecting herself from the outside world.

She unfurled when Lucy crawled over her and started to dress. "What's wrong?"

"I know where Isla Morris is," Lucy said grimly.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT!   
> There is some sexual violence near the end of this chapter that may be uncomfortable for some readers. I've tried not to be supremely explicit but I recognize that it may be upsetting all the same. Please use your discretion before continuing.

A whippoorwill croaked through the cold night air. _Whip—poorwill, whip—poorwill,_ and a car rumbled by. Lucy tucked more into her sweater and walked quickly. The nighttime was _alive._ The shadows, the clouds moving in front of the moon and then off again, the trees rustling, the girl ahead, that lifted from a ditch, seemingly, drifting, drifting through the streets in a flowy shirt and skinny jeans. She was the most fashionable dead girl Lucy had seen in the movies or otherwise. And she was dead. Her white shirt was red on the back, the blood a deep V that stretched towards her hips.

It was Isla. Definitely Isla. Lucy recognized the narrowness of her shoulders from news clippings. Her wispy hair.

"Where are we going?" Natsu still looked asleep, his hair in front of his eyes and his cheeks puffy in a way that would have been adorable if Lucy could stop thinking about murder, could stop following the dead. He didn't seem to see the dead girl and neither did Lisanna. It was mind-boggling. She was right there. _Right there_. If Lucy lengthened her steps, she could catch up to her.

"Lucy? What the _fuck_ are we doing out here? Would someone fucking answer me?" He wasn't mad. Annoyed, scared. Tired of being in the dark. _Dark. Dark. Dark. Dark._

Lisanna said, "She just woke up talking about Isla Morris."

"The girl that went missing?"

Lisanna filled him in on how they sat behind the mall yesterday and tried to speak to the dead and the dead spoke back. "And now…"

"Now we're walking through the dark like crazy people." He was in sandals and shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt like it was almost summer and not almost winter.

"Then go back," Lucy said.

"No fucking way." His tone was totally affronted. Lucy didn't care either way.

Isla drifted north. A car rolled by and its headlights cut through her and she was gone again. Lucy was confident she'd return. Soon. She could feel it.

"We should call Detective Dreyar," Lisanna whinged.

They _should_. Lucy left it to her. Lisanna seemed responsible. She seemed sane. She seemed to be able to _think_. All that filled Lucy's head was dimpled farm field, crushed grass, puddles and wells. _The well_. Why _wouldn't_ a crazy killer stuff her body in a well?

 _Because that's not how any of the other girls were left_ , said a voice in the back of her mind. _Because it breaks the pattern_. He wanted all of the other girls to be _seen._ Though, on the other hand, if it was the original kill, _must_ it fit the pattern?

 _Maybe he was scared to make a big splash at first._ Stunned by what he'd done? Afraid of being caught?

He'd had plenty of experience now, though, and wanted the world to know that he could take six girls without the police catching him, brutally murder them in broad daylight, and leave them on display.

Hearts to replace the ones he took out. Hearts of his choosing. Hearts. Hearts. Hearts.

 _What do they mean_?

The answer was _there._ Right there. And not.

The road sloped and the landscape began to change. Houses sprawled between farm fields and _her_ farm field popped out under the moon, all glossy and pale and bright.

Strobing. Red. Blue. White. Dark. Red. Blue. White. Dark.

_Dark. Dark. Dark. Dark._

"Fuck," Natsu swore. "Fuck. Lucy. We should stop. We should go back."

She could not.

" _Lucy_. Lisanna? What the fuck are we doing? The cops are there. Did you hear me?"

Lucy heard. She couldn't care. She needed to see.

She left the road, crossed the ditch, and was in the field. Isla reappeared, far, far ahead, at the other end, where the field sloped again into the parking lot. Where the police were gathered, neck-deep. She walked steadily, a girl on a mission, and Lucy followed. She followed like a wraith herself.

Natsu lost his sandal. He stopped to grab it and continued barefoot. Lisanna was quiet. Her anxiety just flaked off her; it was almost potent enough to make Lucy forget about her own.

Everything here looked trampled and used like it'd been combed over recently. Lucy still found hillocks to trip on. Rushes dug into her legs and cold wind whipped her face, like Nature herself was telling her to stay away. She couldn't, though. She needed to see. There was a mystery ahead.

The police barrier was guarded heavily by Uniforms on the parking lot side, where they suspected people would gather eventually, once they started getting up to go to work and realized something terrible had happened. The field side was sparse on the manpower and any that _were_ there were looking towards the spectacle the Black Heart had left, gawping, really, like they'd never seen a murder before.

 _Not like this_ , Lucy thought. _Nothing like this._ It was the grandest scene yet, she could tell by all of the officers and techs and the hushed whispers that travelled like the plague from ear-to-ear. It was like no two people could speak at once.

The place stunk. Gods, it stunk so badly. The wind shifted and it was all Lucy could smell.

She passed by the well. It looked untouched. She peered inside but it was just dark. Dark. Dark. Dark. She touched its side, expecting to _feel_ something or get a premonition like maybe Lisanna would. But nothing.

There was a stout apple tree on the parking lot side of the ditch. Lucy used its rough trunk to pull herself out of the ditch so she could clearly see what everyone else was looking at.

Isla Morris. There she was. Or most of her. Her clothes were wet and tattered, leaving a stain on the concrete, and her skin was the colour of ripe banana meat. Her cheek sagged through and her teeth could be seen. Her eyes were like silver dollars. _Eye,_ Lucy corrected. The other one was gone. Melted away somewhere. Her fingers looked like twigs, the nails black claws.

All around her body were construction paper hearts, arranged in the shape of a giant heart. They had letters on them. I and A. S and L. N. They fluttered in the breeze, some pushed out of place. Lucy could see they were never evenly spaced, though. There were spots missing. He had a plan and his work was incomplete.

The night air was abuzz with Nature's decomposers. They flapped in the police spotlight, moths and flies and wasps, braving the fall air for something so ripe.

The stench lifted and Lucy gagged. It was in her throat. In her lungs. Suffocating her. And it couldn't be helped. She retched. And retched. And retched until the wind shifted again and she could no longer smell Isla. She lifted her head again and a hand was in her field of view, offering her a napkin and a piece of gum.

"You're going to need a stronger stomach if you're going to solve crime, Miss Heartfilia." Jellal Fernandez. He looked as ghostly as Isla did in the strobing light. Lucy wiped her mouth and took the offered gum. It helped take the taste from her mouth.

"Thank you."

His attention wandered to Lisanna. She leaned weakly against the apple tree, looking woozy and downright sick. "I'm going to need you to come with me, Miss Strauss."

Lisanna's throat bobbed. Then she stood straight and followed Jellal through the ditch and around the side of the crime scene, to his cruiser, without a glance at anyone else.

"Wait!" Lucy said when she realized they were leaving. "Hang on! You can't just take her. What are you doing?"

Her way was barred by Detective Dreyar. "This way. Both of you." He had such an authoritative way about him, Lucy couldn't bring herself to do anything but what he suggested.

* * *

Lisanna had never been in a police precinct before. It was messy. And a little dirty beyond the front desk. Like a house that was lived in, where everyone worked fulltime.

A man with golden lipstick looked up from the waiting area and gazed through Lisanna. He looked worn out. A door opened in the back and another man walked through, younger, though resembling Gold Lipstick. They hugged before they left, wordless.

"Interrogation's free, Fernandez," said a woman with long dark hair, leaning against a cluttered desk, and Detective Fernandez led Lisanna to a set of double doors. They were metal but there were two big panes of glass so people could look in. They looked bulletproof.

Inside was drab. Grey walls, a champagne-coloured floor, a one-way mirror where Lisanna saw herself reflected back, pale and scared-looking, and a steel table with a U bracket to attach handcuffs through, should the need arise. There were two chairs, straight-backed and metal. Cheap, really, Lisanna decided. They looked flimsy. And felt it, too, when Detective Fernandez waved her into one of them.

He sat opposite of her and pulled his chair in. He was comfortable despite the suit jacket and collared shirt that looked wrinkled and sweat-stained. He'd been away from home for too long. This was his space, where he did his best work.

His elbows rested on the table and he caged his fingers together and rested his chin on them. They looked at each other.

"Do you know why you're here?" Fernandez asked when the second hand had made one full turn of the clock face and neither one of them began the conversation.

All of her words were stuck in her throat.

"We brought your boyfriend in yesterday, remember?"

Lisanna nodded.

"He was surprisingly helpful. He told us something interesting. A pattern we'd missed, actually."

She felt so, so sick.

"Amanda Ashley. Lauren Graham. Sara Phillips. Natasha Green. Isla Morris. Doesn't mean too much like that. But when you arrange them…"

She nodded again. Once.

"You want to tell me why, Lisanna?"

The use of her name was purposeful.

"Minerva doesn't fit so maybe it's not a pattern at all." Willful denial. A desperate attempt to slide the spotlight, back into the old habits Zeref teased out with a surgeon's grace.

"She was a special gift," Fernandez said. "She didn't fit the pattern because she wasn't part of the pattern, not really. His gaze shifted for a moment. But that doesn't mean the original pattern's irrelevant. It's incomplete and tonight was his way of saying he still intends on completing it, right?"

Her hands were shaking. "I might be sick."

He stood and got a garbage can from beside the door and rested it beside the table. Lisanna stared at it. There was a coffee cup at the bottom, crumpled and lipstick stained.

Detective Fernandez took in a deep breath and his shoulders relaxed. "Do you want water?"

"No."

So he sat back in his seat and waited for her. Lisanna brought in greedy gulps of stale air through her mouth. Eventually, she managed, "He's in love with me." A sick, poisoned love.

"How do you know each other?"

"My boyfriend liked it when I—when I was with other people." She was embarrassed by this for the first time. Admitting it to other people was like letting them in on a racy secret when everyone assumed Lisanna Strauss had none—and she _hadn't_ until Bickslow came along—but admitting it to Detective Fernandez in this formal and cold setting made her feel like a child, playacting.

"He took me to a party. With other couples."

"Just to be clear, a swinger party?"

"Yes. We met there. Isla—she came with him."

"No one knew she had a boyfriend."

"She didn't. She liked him, though, and I don't think the feelings were mutual. He brought her there to try to scare her off, I think, you know, look at how crazy I am, you don't want anything to do with this. But love…" It made what had seemed intolerable suddenly bearable.

"We met and we had sex. Him and I. Bickslow watched. He liked it." And she did, too, sitting on _his_ lap. His hands were on her body but she was looking into Bickslow's eyes and she felt like someone so much braver than who she actually was. Like she could be this girl. This boisterous, confident debutant, the fucking life of the party.

"We met there a couple more times, with Isla, before he asked Bickslow if we could get together, just us. He was nice, and Bickslow liked it, and so did I, so I said yes. It turned into a regular thing. He was ignoring Isla, though, and she was getting mad. She'd always text him and when he didn't answer her, she'd call. That wasn't working so she followed him to Bickslow's one day. She accused me of stealing him away from her and I told her that if I could have stolen him, he was never hers." Which was possibly the meanest thing she'd ever said to anyone.

"She went away for a while after that. We were happy, I think." It was such a blur. Late nights, torrid breaths, calloused hands and dark laughter. "Then Isla followed us one night to the parking lot where Orga sells. Where—were Isla was found tonight. They fought. She tried to hit him and I pushed her." Which may or may have not been the moment he fell completely in love with her. "And Isla attacked me. She slapped me." Lisanna could still feel the sting on her cheek like it happened just yesterday and not weeks ago. "And he lost it. I didn't even know he had a knife. But he stabbed her and he kept stabbing her until she just stopped moving and then she was staring at the moon and there was blood everywhere and he was breathing heavy and Bickslow was doing _nothing_ , just kind of gawking, like, should he laugh or should he scream, and all I could think was, _this is the start of something awful_." Some wicked force of nature that would try to sweep her up and carry her away.

"I ran." And ran and ran and ran. And tripped over the curb and bruised her ribs. And picked herself up and ran again.

"This is where you left your house?"

"I guess." In truth, she didn't return home that night and hadn't been back since. She walked for kilometers into the city centre, found Flare and her misadventure began there. "Bickslow called me. He said they took care of everything and it was okay and that no one was mad. He wanted me to come back so everything could be normal again. Nothing was normal, though." Not a single thing. "I told him not to contact me again. He didn't listen, of course. He'll always find me."

Detective Fernandez had a notepad that he scribbled things on. Lisanna couldn't see what, though. She got the feeling it wasn't anything flattering.

"Were they working together?"

"Aside from hiding Isla's body, you mean? I don't think so. Bickslow's…" Crazy. Absolutely _insane,_ and probably loved the thrill and the havoc that came with hiding a body and covering up a passionate accident, but he wasn't a murderer. Or at least, he never used to be.

More scribbles.

"So, when did you know it was a message for you?"

"I didn't."

He looked at her and Lisanna said, "Not for sure. I just get these feelings sometimes."

"Feelings?"

"Like… premonitions, if you believe in that stuff."

"I don't usually." Not him. No nonsense, cold, calculating Detective Fernandez.

"Okay." She bit her lip flat.

"How come you didn't come forward when you got these premonitions?"

"Like I said, I wasn't sure the other murders were him, and I was afraid," Lisanna said. "I thought once I ran, I was going to be like Isla. I tried, though. I tried to make it better. I gave Detective Dreyar Lucy's hearts and tried to show you guys where to find Isla and I thought once you found her, you could trace her back to him. People saw her at those parties. She wasn't a _ghost._ "

He looked rather patient; like he understood about fear and evasion. "You told my partner to check the farm field but we did, Lisanna, and we didn't find Isla. Not until she was put on display for us tonight."

"There was a dug well," Lisanna said. "It was just a little north of the drilled one. Buried. I thought you'd find it."

"We did," Jellal said. "The grass around it looked recently dug up but it was empty."

Lisanna's thoughts clogged and spurted out like fermented milk, simultaneously chunky and watery. "He must have known I told you about the farm field. Or that I was going to, and moved the body."

"The other option is that you told him."

"No. _No._ I told you, I never spoke to him again after the parking lot," she said very firmly. "He must have followed me the night I went to meet Detective Dreyar. He must have suspected." She hated the idea of him following her down the street, a shadow in the shadows, his eyes on her, hungry.

"Okay." Scribble. Scribble.

"You believe me, right?"

Detective Fernandez looked up to meet her again. "Do you have any idea what his plan is once he finishes his love note?"

Is that what they were calling the hearts? A love note? How ghoulish. "No."

He accepted that without adding pressure. "Do you know where to find him?"

"I've only been to his apartment once." While waiting for Bickslow to get off work. "Usually, we went to Bickslow's place."

Jellal jotted down the address.

* * *

Lucy caught glimpses of Detective Dreyar as they passed beneath streetlamps. He wore the same obdurate expression he usually did. Closed off and unfriendly. He'd been evading her questions until then but she determined to ask one so blunt, he'd have no choice but to answer it. "Is Lisanna in trouble?"

Or so Lucy thought.

"What were you doing out in the farm field?"

"I followed a dead girl." He already thought she was insane.

Natsu stiffened in the backseat beside her. Detective Dreyar looked at her in the rearview. "Do you think this is funny, Miss Heartfilia?"

"No, Sir."

"No. Now, what were you doing out there?"

"I told you. Lisanna and I were using an Ouija board, looking for Isla, or her killer, at least, and she told us we'd find her in a well. And I didn't get it at first, but then when I was sleeping, I was dreaming of the farm field, and I remembered the well and when I got out there, I saw her, and I followed her to the parking lot."

He looked downright bitter. "Ouija boards don't work because dead girls don't walk and don't talk. If they did we'd have a higher solve rate."

Lucy knew differently. "It's the truth."

He turned back and looked at her for too long without glancing at the road. "You honestly believe that, huh?"

"If you saw what I did, you would, too."

"One of you is a big fucking liar," he muttered under his breath and she didn't think he meant Natsu.

"Are we in trouble?"

"Not yet."

"Where's Lisanna?"

"Answering questions, Lucy, now drop it." He pulled into Natsu's parking lot and threw the car into park. He turned in his seat then and looked at her through the cage. " _You_ were supposed to text me."

"I thought Lisanna did."

His eye twitched. He got out and yanked open the back door, waiting for her and Natsu to exit. Then he waved them towards the building and followed.

"What are you doing?"

"Making sure you're safe because you don't seem to take this seriously," he rasped.

Lucy felt shame. "I am." Now, anyway, now that Lisanna was taken by the police and Isla was spread out in the parking lot and Minerva was dead. "I'm sorry."

He said nothing.

Natsu unlocked the entrance and led the way up the stairs. His door was open; they hadn't locked it when they left. He let Detective Dreyar in without his asking and the detective did a sweep of the place, blatantly ignoring the bong and the empty beer bottles and the messy couch. Zeref wasn't back from wherever it was Zeref disappeared to when he wasn't here.

"If you have plans tomorrow, cancel them," Detective Dreyar said, back at the door again.

"Okay." There wasn't even a question. She just wanted this all to be over.

Detective Dreyar nodded and took the door handle.

"When's Lisanna coming back?"

"I don't know, Lucy," he said honestly and exited.

Natsu was there. Despite the craziness and the ghosts and the dead, he put his arms around her middle and pulled her against him. He was warm and strong and held her up. Lucy murmured into his chest, "This isn't how I thought tonight would go."

Though it should have been, she supposed. She'd sought out a dead girl and found exactly that.

"Do you think Lisanna's okay?"

"Yes."

"Do you think she's in trouble?"

"I don't know."

Not the reassurance she needed, but there was comfort in knowing he was at just as much of a loss as she was.

Natsu stroked her hair. Lucy stayed against him, letting the gum harden in her mouth and her feet get sore from standing on them weirdly.

Finally, Natsu pushed her back some. "Come on. Let's lie down. We'll hear her if she comes back."

Lucy made a stop in the washroom first to brush her teeth. She stripped of most of her clothes then, getting down to her underwear and pulling on a large T-shirt, and climbed into Natsu's sheets. He was already there, waiting for her. He wrapped her up in his arms and rested his chin on top of her head.

Lucy thought it'd be impossible to sleep but with his hand drawing slow circles on her back, she closed her eyes and dreamed about hearts and dead eyes.

* * *

Lucy opened her eyes next to sunlight coming through Natsu's dark drapes. He was awake and holding his phone above his head, looking at the screen with a bitter expression on his face.

"What?"

"Zeref was apparently the one that made the call about Isla. The police took him in for questioning last night but they're done now and he needs to be picked up."

"Oh." She rolled over on her side and searched but it was obvious Lisanna hadn't made it back last night.

"If she's there, I'll bring her back," Natsu said. Neither one of them said _if you can_ but they were both thinking it.

"Are you leaving now?"

"He's been texting me for the last half hour, so yeah."

"Just let me get dressed."

"Detective Dreyar wanted you to stay in." He sat up; Lucy could see the muscles in his back beneath his sun-kissed skin. Soon, winter would make him pale. He had a birthmark on his left shoulder blade and a scar on his neck she hadn't noticed before. She didn't like to look at it, it was large and white and criminal. It had a violent history, to be sure.

"I'll only be a few minutes."

"Okay," Lucy said with a sigh.

Natsu dressed in a sweater and a pair of blue jeans. He stopped by the edge of the bed before leaving, as if for a kiss. Lucy wasn't sure if he'd want to, not after she blindly followed what she claimed to be a ghost. But he did. He brushed back her hair like they'd been doing this for all their lives and kissed the corner of her mouth.

And then he was gone and it was just her in the apartment.

She stared too long at the ceiling, thinking about the soggy body on the asphalt. About the hearts. About Minerva and her heart. About their killer and Lisanna and hearts and hearts and hearts.

It was too much.

She got up and started making herself tea. It was all she thought she could stomach.

There was a knock on the door so brusque that she slopped hot water on her socked toes. It took a second for it to roll through and burn her skin and it hurt. She curled her toes as she walked to the door. The pain faded quickly.

Another thundering knock.

Lucy supposed as she pulled it back the door and looked at a familiar three-piece brown Armani that she should have suspected her father would find her. she should have _prepared_ for this eventuality. Instead, she stood there in Natsu's shirt, no bra, and a pair of underwear, feeling naked and violated all over again when his eyes took her in greedily. The relief. The fury. It was all there, plain on his face.

"What have you done to your hair?"

She didn't imagine those to be his first words. Where have you been, why did you run away, sorry, maybe? But her hair? "What are you doing here?"

"I've come to take you home, obviously. Get your things."

Lucy's fingers cramped on the doorknob. "I'm not leaving, Dad. Not to go home. Not with you."

"Lucy—"

"Get out."

Anger got his eye twitching. He was all about PR, though, and made his voice low so it didn't carry in the hallway. "Get. Your. Things."

Lucy swung the door closed. Her father grabbed it and pushed it back with considerable force. More than she was expecting. It came out of her hands and hit her in the chest and pushed her back. Her father forced his way through then and slammed the door so hard, the pictures on the walls shook. His face was red and his eyes were hard and beady and unforgiving. He took her by the arm, two sweaty hands on her body, his chest pressed to hers.

"Enough of this. You've had your tantrum. Get your belongings. I'm taking you home, away from this dump and these disgusting mongrels you're surrounding yourself with. Murderers and liars and drug users." He spat out the words like there was nothing worse in this world but Lucy knew different. They could be like him.

 _We don't need love like that._ We don't. Not ever.

Lucy wrenched back from his grasp. "You need to leave or I'm calling the police and I'm telling them exactly what kind of man you are. You'll lose your job, at least. Depending on how I spin the tail, you're looking at five years to life in prison." She'd done her research, just to see what kind of fate she was condemning him to if she talked.

Her father's eye twitched again. "What are you talking about?"

And that, more than anything, made her furious. So. So furious. She saw red. "I never asked you to _touch me_!" Where Lucy couldn't bring herself to hit Minerva the way Erza did, she hit her father. Shoved him, and pushed him back against the wall. "You had no right!"

He looked shocked and then he went back to looking angry. The next time she swung for him, he grabbed her roughly by the bicep and she knew she wouldn't like what was coming next. Natsu's shirt tore and his hands, his sweaty hands, were on her body. Everywhere.

Lucy yelled and jerked away from him and was pulled right back against the counter. Her father was screaming words at her, horrible, vicious things, but none of what he said made any sense; she couldn't listen; she could only focus on this horror about to unfold.

He grabbed her underwear and tore those, too, except it was only the fabric that ripped, the elastic stressed and strained and snapped back against her and it probably hurt but she couldn't focus on that, either.

Lucy pushed him back and lifted her leg and kneed him in the groin. He growled and she was slammed back again. Lucy searched the counter desperately for something. _Anything_. Her tea spilled over her hand and burned her. Perfect.

A lot of the hot liquid went on her, too, but it was worth it. Her father released her and she took advantage of it, tearing out of the kitchen and ripping open the hallway door. She felt like she could fly, she was running so fast. She heard her father snort. He was after her. He wasn't as fast, though. He couldn't leap down the stairs and he couldn't run heedlessly into traffic once he was outside, as if he were unafraid of the cars whirling by.

Lucy could, though.

Cars honked their horns and swerved around her. A truck even bumped her with its front end. She was pushed across the rest of the road. The sidewalk and the curb dug into her shin and she was cut and bruised and probably badly hurt but she didn't care. Up she scrambled and into the park, racing along the beams the rising sun made on the dying grass.

There was yelling behind her. Lots and lots of yelling. She glanced back once. Her father was fighting with someone in the streets. She faced forward again, pouring on more speed, getting across the open grass and into the woods. Where it was still dark. Where no one could see her. Where the woods swallowed the sounds of a scuffle. Where she tripped over the body of a girl and the man carving the heart from her chest. He looked up and all she could see was _dark, dark, dark, dark_.

He smiled a slow, flat smile and Lucy realized she was wrong: he had three expressions. Earnest Freed. Indifferent Freed. And Lunatic Freed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please. Please. If you review, refrain from spoiling the surprise for other readers by posting the reveal in your comments. Even if you're furious at me for making him do such terrible things. Say your piece namelessly. Merci.


	18. Chapter 18

An early autumn wind rustled yellowing birch leaves and pine needles. Some rained down like confetti, landing on Freed's shoulders, in Lucy's hair, falling in the blood. She knew she should turn, leave all this behind, run as far and as fast as she could, away from the Black Heart, away from the horror, but she couldn't. The worst part was, she didn't know if it was because she'd rather be here than facing her father.

This was a foe she knew how to tackle.

Maybe.

"Is Lisanna with you?" His hands glistened like the floor of a slaughterhouse, his finger sliding over the blade. His other hand clenched on the girl's shirt like it was rooting him in reality.

It was doing the opposite for Lucy. With every breath, she stepped further and further into unreality, deeper and deeper into someplace without light.

"Are you going to answer me? Where is she? I'm not ready yet." He seemed anxious but giddy, too, like he'd throw away the surprise for a cheap thrill if she was there. "Lucy?"

Her name spoken aloud had a jarring effect. Finally, her throat opened up and she could speak. "Did you kill that girl?" Of _course,_ he _did_. He did. He did. He did. And she caught him. And he wasn't doing anything yet, but looking at her, wondering if she brought _Lisanna_?

The corners of his mouth got tight and he sighed. "You're scared."

She was. Finally. She was too little too late. "Why? Why have you been doing this?"

Freed got back to work on the body as if he didn't really care that she was there, watching him. "So Lisanna knows I'm still thinking about her. so she knows I still love her."

The heart squelched in the chest cavity as Freed shoved his slender fingers inside and dug around. Bits of bone burgeoned when he removed his hand again. He used his knife to cut away arteries. They popped like the tendons in a chicken's thigh. Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap. Now it was only attached by the ones on the bottom and the heart waved in the air like a wet ruby, stinking of organ blood.

Lucy's stomach turned. "I thought…"

_That I was different._

He glanced at her through a sheaf of hair. The ends were dangling in the blood, turning red. "I did leave some of the hearts for you, if that's what you're wondering, not to worry. The truth is, though, I care about you but I don't love you the way I love her. What Lisanna and I have is special. Your hearts were to prove to her that I could share for her. Was she happy when you showed them to her? Or jealous?"

Lucy didn't even know how to answer that.

"She doesn't have to be. We can be together, all of us." Anything for Lisanna, his tone said. "Don't you believe me?" There was Earnest Freed. "Come here. Lucy, come here." He held out the hand with the knife and blood dripped from his fingers. "Cut the rest of her heart out. We'll say it's from both of us."

Like they were plucking roses from a bush or choosing jewellery. Just reach in and grab it.

Lucy's stomach got more unsettled. " _No_."

"Do you want to do the next one yourself, then? It's really easy to get them to come to you. You just stand there and look panicked. ' _Please! Please! There's someone hurt! I need help!'_ "

And it _was_ disturbing how easily he put on that face. He looked benign until he smiled and then it was dark, dark, dark, dark. She would have wandered from her path, too, to help him, this wolf in sheep's clothes.

"You need help, Freed."

His smile dropped in increments. "I don't suppose you mean getting Ana Walsh to come to me."

Ana Walsh. He'd already spied out his next victim. Maybe he'd already used his killer's hands to cut out her black heart, to place her initial on the front.

"What's the significance? Why do you choose the girls you do?"

"Lauren, Isla, Sara, Amanda, Natasha, this here is Nicole," Freed pointed to the dead girl at his feet, "And lastly, Ana."

And like she was making a puzzle, all the pieces fit in place. "You're spelling Lisanna's name."

"Detective Dreyar is right, you _would_ make a pretty good detective, once you have some training and some experience. You're pretty clever, and persistent. You make a connection with your killer, you make them believe you want to help so they'll let you get close."

How long had he been watching her for? How close had he gotten? How many times had he been lurking in the shadows, without her knowledge, just _listening_? She felt gross for inviting him in so close. She'd been opening Hell's doors for a demon and didn't even realize it.

Dark. Dark. Dark. Dark.

"Lisanna doesn't want this."

"Did she tell you that?"

"No," Lucy said quietly. "But ask yourself if this is something she would want. And answer honestly."

His face clouded and Lucy thought she'd reached something inside of him, something sane. Then it smoothed again and she realized she was wrong, he'd only reached deeper into something darker. "Have you been telling her lies? Have you been saying bad things about me?" Freed stood and he seemed impossibly tall, but narrow, like a willow, getting ready to bend and whip at her in the growing breeze.

"No. I didn't say anything," Lucy said.

He didn't believe her, that was obvious. His hand flexed on his knife and his shoulders hunched forward dangerously. "You're a liar. What did you tell her? What does she think of me? Does she hate me?"

Lucy hit a tree at her back and realized she'd been stumbling that way. It made her feel shame; she couldn't stand up to her father, she couldn't stand up to Freed, either. Was she so cowardly?

_You have no weapon, and he looks like a caged bear_ , mean and vicious. _Don't be stupid. Don't. Don't be stupid. Don't be stupid_ as he took another threatening step towards her.

"Of course she hates you. What you're doing is disgusting." She did _not_ mean for those words to come out. It just happened. Defense mechanism. Or tiredness of fear. Or just a stupid act of bravery after she ran from her father, into the depths of a murder.

Freed's hand flexed again and then he lunged. He was quick, like a cat, and grabbed her by her shoulder when she spun away from him. Her T-shirt nightgown torn _more_. Now it was ripped all down her back and a little across her front, too. She hit the ground and rocks and tree roots dug into her knees. Lucy swallowed her yell and turned.

Freed had changed his grip on his knife. Now the blade faced his wrist and he gripped the handle so hard, his knuckles were white. He dug them into the ground beside her head and grabbed her by the throat with his free hand. He squeezed and shimmied up so his knees dug into her arms and his weight compressed the air from her lungs.

She couldn't breathe.

Lucy pushed at Freed, punched and lifted her hips and pinched and scratched. He snarled and pushed her hands aside. The knife dug into her forearm and left a deep, deep cut. It felt frivolous to waste what little breath she had on a scream she couldn't get out anyway.

Freed grinned; he liked the look of blood. He liked the feel of it, hot on his fingers. He liked the smell of it, pungent in his nose.

Lucy bucked again. Black spots were appearing in front of her eyes and her throat felt like it was a piece of dry noodle, on the verge of snapping apart. _I'm dying_ , she thought distantly, _and the name of Freed's next victim will die with me._ That was the biggest shame of all. She couldn't save this innocent girl that was going to die for an unwelcomed and twisted show of affection.

Freed started breathing heavier. Between the black spots, Lucy could see the fervour that dripped off him. He was excited and pushing into breasts and all she could think was, _this can't be how it ends_.

Then a charge came into the air. She felt it deep in her bones. A pale hand closed around Freed's neck and squeezed. His eyes went wide. He let Lucy go and whipped around, knife bared, but he could not cut through the ghost of Isla Morris. He could not slice down Amanda Ashley, either, when she pushed him off Lucy. He could not tear open the throat of Sara Phillips when she stood like Emily Rose with her hair in twisted knots and her mouth snarled in rage, her eyes as blank and as black as jet.

"No, no, no," Freed murmured. "You're dead. You're all _dead_. Why are you here?"

Lucy rolled onto her side and got to her knees. "You shouldn't have hurt them." It hurt to speak and her voice was a whisper.

He swiped at them again. Of course, he couldn't hurt them anymore. "Tell them to go away. Tell them to leave me alone!"

"Even if I could, I wouldn't."

Isla was yanking at his arm. It seemed she wasn't fully corporeal, she couldn't grab the knife and wrench it away from him, she couldn't hold him back like she was a real girl with real weight behind her. She opened her mouth in an enraged and silent scream and Lucy saw the body of the girl Freed must have pulled from the well. She was wet and rotting again, a Fury straight from myth.

Freed's fear spiked. He shook her off and lunged for Lucy with his knife brandished, as if he sank it into her, cut out _her_ heart, all of this would go away.

Multiple explosions rocked the early morning world. Freed jarred, once, twice, three times. He looked down at his chest numbly. Three neat holes had pierced his skin and now thick, red blood oozed out. His fingers loosened on his knife and it fell to the ground. He followed it closely after. The ghosts started fading one by one. When they'd all disappeared, Detective Dreyar was there and Lucy better understood who her father was fighting with in the street. His face was pale and his forehead was sweaty, like his white button-down shirt, soaked and clinging to him.

He checked on Freed first, pushing his fingers into his neck. When he'd determined that he wasn't going anywhere, he came for Lucy. He had a radio in his hand and he was talking into it so quickly, and her ears were ringing so badly, Lucy couldn't pick out the particulars of what he said. He grabbed her arm and squeezed so tight, she hissed and tried to pull away.

"You're hurt," he told her sternly. "Don't move."

And so she was. Just bleeding away. Bleed, bleed, bleed, like Freed, into the grass, like Nicole.

_Not_ , she decided firmly. _Not like either. You're not dead._

She felt like she could be, though, a ghost-like Isla Morris, seeing the world but not really affecting it.

"You did good," Dreyar told her like they were having a conversation. "Really fucking good. The medics are on their way. They're going to get you sewn up, and we're going to take you to the hospital, right?"

She analysed him. "You're scared, Detective Dreyar."

"Your arm."

But that wasn't it. Not entirely. She thought he'd seen his first ghost.

* * *

Despite a healthy dose of anti-inflammatories, Lucy's neck was still swollen. And her arm was itchy. Two of her fingers were numb, too, her pinky and her ring. _Damaged nerves_ , the doctor had told her. It wasn't likely to ever get better. She wasn't upset about it, though. The doctor had given her something calming. Something that made her lips feel like she couldn't quite keep them together, made her focus on the sway of her hair over the back of her neck when she moved her chin left and right.

It was so _short._ So short.

_What did you do to your hair?_

She picked at the four-inch bandage on her arm and the tension that'd been rising in her chest settled. She supposed it could have been much worse. A little higher and Freed would have cut an artery. A little deeper and he would have cut a lot of muscle tissue.

There was a commotion out in the hallway. She looked up as the door burst open and Natsu came through. He was in a leather jacket and a pair of torn up jeans. He wore a black T-shirt with a band on it that she didn't recognize. In his hand was the bag Lisanna had brought for her.

Detective Dreyar snagged him by the collar before he could get in too far. "This place is off limits."

"You told me she needed clothes."

"I meant _give them to me_ ," Dreyar said between his teeth.

"I just want to see her." Natsu squirmed out of his hold and his eyes scraped over Lucy, full of worry.

Dreyar huffed. "You have like, two minutes. Then I need you out of here."

"Fine," Natsu said distractedly.

Lucy wasn't prepared for the hug he squeezed her in. She liked it, though. it felt safe, and it was warm, and though his body was hard with muscle, it was easy to sink into him.

"Are you okay?" His breath was hot sliding down her neck, into her flimsy hospital gown. It made her shiver.

"Yes."

He pressed his lips against her bruised throat. "I'm sorry, Lucy. I shouldn't have gone."

If he hadn't, though, she never would have run out into the park to avoid her father, she never would have caught Freed, and two more girls could be dead instead of just one. "It's not your fault."

"You shouldn't try to talk so much."

She laughed a little; it was soggy with tears. Natsu pulled her closer.

"Have you seen Lisanna?"

"The only thing that cop would tell me was that her sister showed up at the precinct."

"I hope she's okay. He was leaving the notes for her. The Black Heart. He was spelling her name with dead girls." _Can you believe it_? she wanted to ask but her throat was too sore to get the rest of the words out.

Natsu hugged her tighter. "This is so fucked up."

So very, very fucked up.

The door opened again and Detective Dreyar poked his head through. "Out now, Dragneel, her doctor's cleared her and we need to ask her some questions."

"She can't talk." Natsu didn't ease his hold on Lucy and spoke to the window at her back.

"We'll keep it brief. Come on, before I book you for obstruction."

Natsu released Lucy and turned. Lucy couldn't see his expression but she imagined that it was scathing. Detective Dreyar's wasn't much better. "Go home, Natsu. Clean your apartment up, I hear we're done with it. Get some rest."

"Are you taking her to the precinct?"

He only stared at Natsu.

Natsu said to Lucy, "Call me when you're done. I'll pick you up." He squeezed her knee lightly and then pushed past Detective Dreyar with a discernible amount of contempt.

Detective Dreyar sighed. "Do you want me to call a nurse to help you dress?"

Lucy shook her head; even that hurt her throat.

"Okay. I'll wait out here. Come out when you're ready." He closed the door again.

Lucy sat there for a moment, the memory of Natsu's arms around her holding her together in ways she didn't understand.

Then she pulled out the clothes Lisanna had brought and chose some that made her feel safe. Dark jeans and an oversized purple sweater. There were shoes there, too, combats that looked much like something Lisanna would wear, not her.

They fit, though.

When she was ready, she left the hospital room. Detective Fernandez and Dreyar were waiting for her in the hallway. She fell into step beside them, out into the waiting cruiser.

* * *

Lucy had never been in an interrogation room before. There was a camera in the corner, and a table with a U bracket and a window she couldn't see out of, but she could see herself _in_. She didn't like the way she looked. Like a scarecrow with bruised eyes and purple skin and a whole lot of Hell in her eyes.

The door opened and both Dreyar and Fernandez came in. Detective Dreyar had a glass of water that he gave to Lucy. Detective Fernandez sucked back some coffee from a paper cup. Lucy chanced a look at it over the rim. It looked as thick and as black as tar, sticking to the edge of the cup and slowly sliding down after he'd swallowed.

Lucy sipped the water. She was thirstier than she'd originally thought and guzzled almost all of it back. Each time her throat flexed was agony.

Detective Dreyar waited patiently for her. "How are you feeling?" he asked when the glass was empty.

"I'm okay," Lucy said in the delicate way she imagined trauma victims spoke. Delve any deeper, she'd be a shivering puddle.

"We need to talk about Freed."

And the blood that had burbled out of the girl's chest as he yanked on her heart.

"To do that, though, I think we need to talk about your dad."

And his sweaty hands tearing her underwear, squeezing her until she bruised.

"Is that okay?"

No.

"How about I start?" Detective Dreyar asked. "We'll go from there."

He was going to whether she liked it or not.

"Lisanna told us Freed's address and we went to check it out. He was gone but he had notes for you, Lucy. Hearts that he was planning on sending out. So we decided to check on you. Now, when I came up those stairs, I heard screaming. I was expecting to see Freed Justine when I came through the doors up top but saw you racing out the other exit with your dad running after you. Does that sound about right?"

"Yes."

"I chased you out into the street. I caught up with your old man. You scratched him."

_Did I?_ She didn't remember. She must have, though. Her nailbeds hurt like she had and two of her nails were broken past the quick.

"Then I arrested him."

It was _ludicrous_ to think that her father was _here_ , in Clover's jail.

"He's not above the law," Fernandez said tersely. Maybe he was like her and Lisanna, able to see things that other people couldn't, like Lucy's thoughts.

"Now you go," Detective Dreyar said. "And if you need to stop at any point and take a break, that's okay. We'll record it all so we can pick it up again."

Lucy felt for her tongue. It felt like a piece of brick, unyielding and unruly. "Yes."

"Start from the beginning."

The best she could do was start at the park, running through the bars of sunlight, catching up to a beast she didn't know she was tailing. Detective Fernandez recorded everything on his cell phone as his partner said, and Detective Dreyar made observational notes on a notepad with bushy and bent pages.

Detective Fernandez interrupted when Lucy got to the ghosts. "Pardon?"

"I'm not crazy." At least, she didn't _feel_ any crazier than usual. "They pulled him off of me. I never would have been able to dislodge him otherwise. They saved me."

Whatever his thoughts on that, he kept his own counsel. Detective Dreyar scribbled frantically, brow furrowed, storm-cloud eyes stormier than usual. He was seeing Isla again if she was any judge, and he was struggling to make sense of it.

"And then you shot him," Lucy said. And Freed died like any regular man might, with blood in his mouth and on his chest. She hoped he wouldn't haunt her. She couldn't stand it.

"I want a coffee. You want a coffee, Lucy?" Detective Fernandez asked.

"Does that mean I'm going to be here longer?" Lucy wondered.

"We still have lots to talk about," Detective Dreyar said.

And by that, he meant the same thing over and over and over again, making sure she didn't skimp on any details, or get her story mixed up.

Two hours had slipped by before he was satisfied. The clock read five. Where had the day gone?

"Our last bit of business is your father," Dreyar said casually like it was no big deal.

Whatever the doctor had given her was wearing off and she felt the first dregs of panic.

"We can keep him for a bit, but it's up to you to make the charges stick. I need you to tell me everything."

Every dirty secret. Sticky, poisoned touch.

"He'll come after you again if you don't speak up," Detective Dreyar said gently. "You know he will. You can break the cycle now, though."

"I know," Lucy spoke to the table but snagged glimpses of her audience out of the corner of her eye. Dreyar sat on the edge of his seat with his hands latticed under his chin and looking supremely uncomfortable and outraged. Fernandez just stared into his coffee cup, not doing anything, just listening, waiting. He could probably outwait the dead.

"We can get you a female officer, if you like."

Was that something she would like? Would it make a fucking _difference_? It was humiliating and it was defamating either way. She mapped out her courses of action, seeing the outcomes of each. If she did nothing he _would_ come after her again. Or she'd forget the worst of it, time had a funny way of smoothing the rough edges of terrible things, and go back to him for a family get together or holidays. He'd slip up before the other guests had arrived, corner her in the music room and grope her, or barge into her room again after she'd come from the shower, unannounced and unwelcomed, and touch her until he needed to find release in the bathroom. Or he'd find the same rage he'd discovered in Natsu's apartment and tear her clothes and do things she'd never forget, things she'd never forgive.

"Lucy?" Detective Dreyar prodded.

Lucy cleared her swollen throat. "I know you. I'd rather speak to you."

He didn't move, his nor his partner's expression changed. The stasis was what allowed her to continue, even through the gruesome, shameful bits.

* * *

It was past one in the morning when Lucy came out of the precinct with the card of a therapist the police frequently recommended to people like her. Natsu was waiting for her just like he promised, bunched up in one of the chairs in front of the reception desk. He looked half dead, mostly leaning on Zeref, kind of snoozing, head nodding, eyes drooping. He was abruptly alert when he heard her heels on the floor. The way he looked half-ready to slouch back into the small chair again bespoke of hours of false alarms. Then he saw her and his mouth did a weird half-smile.

"Hey."

Zeref had been snoozing, too, with his head back against the plain white wall but now he opened his eyes and Lucy felt his stare. It was different than Freed's, she could see that now, but it still held weight.

"Lucy."

"Thanks for waiting." She still sounded like a life-long smoker.

Natsu got up and took her hand. Lucy asked, "Have you seen Lisanna yet?"

Natsu shook his head. "Not yet. I've tried calling her, too, but nothing."

"I hope she's okay." She was really starting to worry and no one was saying anything worth saying about her whereabouts.

Zeref stood and made it to the door first. He shouldered it open and got the car door for Lucy, too, putting her in the front seat. He sat in the back and she felt his presence like a raincloud that would not pass, heavy and omnipresent. He grabbed the seat and leaned forward. Lucy could feel his breath hitting her cheek, smelling of alcohol.

"You survived."

"Zeref," Natsu warned as he got into the driver seat.

"It's okay," Lucy said after a moment. And it was true, Zeref wasn't the worst thing she'd dealt with that day.

"Were you scared?"

"A little."

"Did you like it?"

"A little." A lot, actually. The reveal, the satisfaction she felt when Freed had been shot in the chest. It was frightening, but not as frightening as knowing there was a killer still on the lam, hunting for her, or for Lisanna, actually.

"I knew you would. It won't be easy to give it up now."

No, it would not.

Natsu looked supremely uncomfortable, and maybe he always would when they started talking about stuff in the dark, dark, dark, dark.

The headlights swung over the apartment frontage and _finally_ , Lucy found Lisanna. She sat on the concrete steps with her knees up by her chin, her arms wrapped around her legs. There was a duffle bag at her feet and tears on her cheeks, though it seemed like she'd stopped crying.

When she saw them, she got to her feet and then just stood there, waiting. There was an uncertain aura around her that Lucy ignored entirely and scooped her into a fierce hug. Lisanna clutched her back and buried her face in Lucy's shoulder.

"I was so worried about you."

"I'm okay," Lucy said.

"You don't _sound_ okay."

"It sounds worse than it is."

Lisanna clutched her tighter. "Are you mad at me?"

"Why would I be?"

"Because this is all my fault. He was here for me and if I said something sooner…" There were the tears. Lucy felt them soaking through her sweater; Lisanna's back heaved. "I didn't know, though. Not really. I thought—I thought it was a coincidence—" (a lie)— "And then I thought he'd stop—" (Denial, at best, willful ignorance at worst) – "I never thought he'd hurt you." And why would she? He already had the letter L.

"Everything's alright. I'm fine. You're fine." A girl was dead but another had survived. "And he can't hurt anyone anymore."

Lisanna sobbed. Lucy held her until she didn't. Somewhere in the distance, the clock tower chimed two.

"Do you have a place to stay?" Natsu asked. Lucy had forgotten he was there but both he and Zeref were sitting on the curb. Zeref was smoking and Natsu was running the tips of his fingers over the sidewalk.

Lisanna turned her cheek on Lucy's shoulder. The answer was so long in coming, Lucy knew she meant _yes,_ but she didn't want to have to stay there.

"Can she stay here?" Lucy asked.

"Yeah," Natsu said like that was the obvious choice. Lucy loved him for it.

Lisanna grabbed her duffle bag and waved into the parking lot. An ancient car turned on and washed them in the glow of its yellow headlights. It drove out of the driveway slowly and when it got on the road, the engine roared.

"Who was that?"

"My sister," Lisanna said. "She wanted me to come home but…"

Sometimes, there was no going back to the way things used to be.

Zeref yanked open the door and led the way.

The apartment was clean, there was no evidence of what happened in the kitchen. It was all a blur in Lucy's mind, something that happened to someone else, maybe, or something that she'd done a very good job at repressing. She considered that maybe she really _should_ talk to that therapist.

Zeref sparked up a joint and handed it around. Lucy passed. She was already a mess with what the doctors gave her. Lisanna didn't. Halfway through, she stopped shaking, and when she was finished, she was calm.

Lucy cleaned up in the washroom. Her hair was a greasy mess. She showered, careful not to get her bandage wet, and then took another one of the anti-inflammatories to stop her pounding head and to make swallowing easier.

When she came back out, Lisanna wasn't in the living room and Natsu and Zeref were on the balcony smoking a cigarette. She left them to it.

Natsu's door was mostly closed and the light was off. She could make out Lisanna on the bed. She looked small and red-eyed. How much was from crying and how much was from weed?

Lucy closed the door more and undressed, leaving everything there on the ground. She climbed into bed behind Lisanna and wrapped around her.

"We can look at apartments tomorrow if you want?"

"You still want to do that?" Lisanna asked.

"More than ever." She never wanted to step foot in her father's house again. "Besides, we can't crash here forever." Zeref would be leaving soon and Happy would come home and he probably wanted his apartment back, free of all the craziness.

Lisanna's breath shuddered. Lucy held her tighter like she could squeeze the crying out of her. It worked. Miraculously. Lisanna arched back and kissed her and Lucy kissed her back.

Natsu joined them ten minutes later, smelling like cigarettes. He closed the door fully and got into bed behind Lucy. It was a bit of a tight squeeze. She considered getting a bigger bed when she and Lisanna got their apartment.

Natsu put his arm around Lucy's waist and tickled her bare skin lightly, sliding all the way from her ribs down to her hip. His touch obliterated the memory of the other hands that had been on her that day. Cruel fingers and malicious intent. Gone.

"Can you kiss me?" Lucy asked.

Natsu's response was immediate. He kissed her shoulder, the back of her neck and her ear. He kissed her chin and he got up on his elbow and kissed her on the mouth, too, and that was nice.

"And Lisanna?"

Natsu reached for her and Lisanna leaned forward for him. Lucy watched their silhouettes, squished between them, touched and touching, and thought she had nowhere she'd rather be and no one else she'd rather be with. They pampered her and she forgot she was sore and tired and distraught.

* * *

It was three. The clock tower was tolling. Lucy wriggled out from beneath Lisanna and put on Natsu's sweater. It fell to just below her hips and covered what she needed it to. Zeref was sleeping on the couch, bathed in the glow of an orange streetlight with his arm tossed over his eyes. Lucy waited until she had the bathroom door closed before she turned on the light so she didn't disturb him.

She paused at the mirror. She could see Freed's handprint on her throat, the bruise deepening as the hours rolled on. His thumb and his fingers. They would fade and there would be no more trace of the Black Heart. It was weird to think that he was gone, that she'd get no more hearts.

It almost made her sad.

She thought she heard something out in the street and moved the curtain aside. There was a boy she didn't recognize down there staggering up the centre of the road. She knew he was dead when a car drove straight through him. He turned and met her eyes; his clothes were soaked in so much blood; his neck was a gaping mouth. There were other killers to chase, he seemed to say with his cold, dead eyes, and better ways to do it. Cleverer ways, Lucy supposed. Zeref was right, she'd never give it up now. She imagined herself in a suit with a gun and a badge, fearless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, everyone. If you're interested in supporting me, a struggling artist, I have a couple books on Amazon, The Reformation of Linnea Hail and The Abolition of Caden Hail, and a short story called Girls Like Us, all by Kaitlin Corvus. I also have a Patreon under Kaitlin Corvus where I have a few ongoing projects.  
> Thanks for being so stellar and reading my work, you're the best :)


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